A $580.7 million budget got final approval Monday night in an unanimous vote from the Shawnee Mission School Board, after a brief public hearing and relatively little discussion.
The 2023-2024 school year budget, which has been the subject of workshops and committee meetings since April, is a nearly 14% increase over last year’s, which totaled roughly $509 million.
As part of this new budget, the board also approved a property tax rate of 50.799 mills. That’s also an increase from the previous year, when the property tax, or mill levy, rate was 49.386 mills.
The budget is figured against a projected enrollment of 26,016 full-time equivalent students, a decrease of about 37 students from the previous year.
Per pupil expenditures are going up
The bulk of the spending — about 49% of the total expenditures — is on instruction, with debt service and operations and maintenance being the second highest with 10% each.
According to the budget summary on the district’s web page, the Shawnee Mission district intends to spend $8,687 per student on instruction in the school year just begun, which is up from $8,071 in 2022-2023.
Spending on instruction increased about 7% from the previous year, according to the district’s figures, but some other categories had higher increases.
Capital improvement spending on the district’s physical properties were a little more than double a year ago, and operations and maintenance were up 56%.
The district has recently approved major upgrades and rebuilding of five elementary schools, including John Diemer and Pawnee Elementary, both of which opened in Overland Park this year.
Those projects are being paid for by funds raised through a $264 million bond issue approved by voters in 2021.
Teacher and administrator pay breakdown
Based on the budget approved Monday, the average annual salary for administrators this year will be $132,859.
For full-time teachers and other licensed personnel, the average salary is $80,000.
The starting salary for first-year teachers in Shawnee Mission is now set at slightly more than $47,400, a bump of nearly 7% over last year.
Those figures were the result of the new staff contract negotiated with NEA-Shawnee Mission and ratified by the board in June.
Enrollment steady but still down from pre-pandemic years
Shawnee Mission’s projected enrollment for 2023-24 is almost unchanged from last year but is up from the 2020-2021 year — the first full year back from the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — when it was 25,673 full-time students.
Still, the district’s expected enrollment for this coming year remains below pre-pandemic levels, when the district was reporting about 27,500 students enrolled each year dating back to 2016-17.
The district’s free meal headcount has been going up, with 9,450 expected to qualify this year, a 14 percent% spike, one of the drivers of increased spending.
Property tax rate remains below other JoCo districts
Kansas schools are required by law to set a rate of 20 mills for a general taxing rate. That revenue, collected locally, is sent to the state, which uses a complicated school aid formula to redistribute dollars back to districts.
The redistribution method is based on districts’ reported student enrollment but also includes numerical weightings for a variety of factors, including the number of students at risk, special education students and non-native English speakers a district serves.
Beyond the 20 mills collected for the state, Shawnee Mission figures 12.717 mills for supplemental general use, 8 mills for capital outlay and 7.434 mills for bonds and interest.
Even with the increase to 50.799 mills this year, Shawnee Missions’s property tax rate remains the lowest of all six public school districts in Johnson County, according to a budget presentation given to the school board earlier this year.
Overall, the district is projecting a $100,000 deficit in its operating funds from what it originally forecast in May because of negotiated salaries and an insurance rate that came in higher than expected, said Russell Knapp, the district’s chief financial officer.
However, that deficit is considered small relative to the entire budget and is not an unusual occurrence, he said. Accumulated fund balances are expected to cover it.
Comments at Monday’s public hearing
Before the final vote Monday, the board held a public hearing on the budget and on the district’s intent to exceed the state-mandated revenue neutral rate.
The revenue neutral rate is the taxing rate that would have raised the same amount of money as last year. The district would have had to cut its property tax rate significantly — down to 44.688 mills — to keep the total amount raised the same because of increasing property values.
Seven people spoke at the public hearing. A few, like Sean Claycamp, said they would appreciate more transparency in the communications they get about the budget from the administration.
Some others were also concerned about high taxes.
Another commenter, Bruce Belanger, said he was concerned about the grades in the district.
“If I spend money I want to see value. If I spend more money I want to get more value, not less,” he said.
Melissa Rooker, a former Kansas state Representative from Fairway and the current executive director of the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund, said the district has followed Kansas law, which governs much of the decision making about school taxation.
She said the district’s record of financial management has led to a AAA bond rating.
Ultimately, the board voted 6-0 to approve the budget. Board member Brad Stratton, who was present for much of the meeting remotely, was absent for the budget votes.
Roxie Hammill is a freelance journalist who reports frequently for the Post and other Kansas City area publications. You can reach her at roxieham@gmail.com.
