Los Alamitos Unified closes the books on fiscal year 2010-2011

At the regular meeting of the Board of Education of the Los Alamitos Unified School District on Tuesday, September 13, Deputy Superintendent Patricia Meyer presented a report on 2010-11 unaudited actuals to the District’s 2010-2011 budget.

According to Mrs. Meyer, “closing the books” on the District’s budget requires the District to balance all financial information by fund, function, goal, location, object, resource and fiscal year.

The able, patient and meticulous staff led by Director of Fiscal Services May Vang must produce nine separate reports:

unaudited actuals for all funds
program cost
transportation
appropriations limit (so-called “Gann”)
current classroom expense forumula
lottery
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) maintenance of effort
special education maintenance of effort
technical review

Based on information gathered and analyzed to close the books on fiscal year 2010-2011, technical changes are made to the District’s 2011-2012 budget.

Note, however, that the State of California requires that the District adopt a budget with no decrease in revenue despite a shortfall already easy to see in State revenue.

For that reason, the only technical changes that the District can make to its 2011-2012 budget are revised beginning balances and reallocation of carryover amounts.

On the other hand, the District can realistically plan for potential State budget cuts in January by committing reserves to against those potential cuts:

2011-122012-132013-14

Committed reserves for potential State budget cut	$3,082,860	$6,165,720	$9,248,580
Reserve for economic uncertainties assuming future COLAs are paid	29.37%	21.49%	9.85%
Reserve for economic uncertainties assuming future COLAs are not paid	29.37%	18.93%	4.07%

The Board unanimously approved the report on a vote of 4-0. (Board member Dr. Jeffrey Barke was absent.)

The report will be submitted to the Orange County Department of Education for review and approval.

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2011 STAR test results for Los Alamitos Unified School District (oc-breeze.com)

About the Author

shelley

Shelley Henderson is a reformed computer and networking geek turned freelance writer. Now she only fixes her own networks and computers. That leaves time for writing, and writing and more writing. And editing the Orange County Breeze. Shelley most enjoys visiting and finding out about local businesses to write business profiles that allow our communities to learn more about their local businesses and the people who own and run them. If you own or manage a business in our coverage area and would like to invite Shelley to write a business profile, let us know.