By Ann Marie Shambaugh
The forecast is cloudy for the Zionsville Community Schools rainy day fund, which is primarily used to cover emergency repairs and other unexpected expenses.
The fund, which had a balance of more than $3.6 million as recently as 2011, dipped to $209,200 after the final cost for replacing the HVAC system at Zionsville West Middle School in the summer of 2015 came in at $602,000.
“Unfortunately we’ve had a few too many emergencies, so the fund is very nearly depleted down to about $200,000, which frankly isn’t adequate to handle any emergency of any size given the last couple we’ve had. We’re very concerned about that,” ZCS Chief Financial Officer Mike Shafer told the school board Feb. 8.
To begin rebuilding the fund, the board approved a transfer of $290,800 into the rainy day fund from the transportation fund, which ended 2015 with a surplus. This will bring the rainy day fund to $500,000.
Shafer said that ultimately he’d like to see the fund reach at least $1.5 million, enough to cover one payroll in case of a problem at the bank or a delay in property tax payments, but he doesn’t expect to reach that goal for many years.
If an expensive emergency happens before the district has enough funds in the rainy day fund to cover it, Shafer said the district could consider making temporary emergency loans to the fund from another fund or using money from the general or capital projects funds, which would likely result in the cancellation of other projects or activities. Other funding options would also be considered.
ZCS dipped into the fund in 2011, 2012 and 2013 to cover teacher salaries and payroll costs to avoid teacher layoffs “during the worst of our funding crisis years with our general fund,” Shafer said.
“The Board determined that discontinuing instructional programs, laying off teachers and increasing class sizes was so undesirable that the use of the rainy day fund was warranted to prevent these things,” he said.
The district transferred $274,000 from its bus replacement fund to the rainy day fund in early 2014 to begin shoring up the balance, but in February of that year a boiler repair at Eagle Elementary cost nearly $97,000.
