The Columbus Municipal School District Board of Trustees were greeted with good news on several financial fronts during Monday’s regular board meeting.
The board approved the final resolutions for refinancing its bond debt, which will save the district $365,000 over the life of the bonds, received some unexpected money from federal grants programs and left the meeting with a budget that should show a surplus of roughly $150,000.
James Young of Young Law Group of Jackson, presented the board with the final resolutions to complete the bond refinancing process.
“The actual bond savings will be $365,000,” Young said. “If you will recall when we started this process, I said that not only do we want to save some money, but if we could get some other benefit, I feel like it would be much more worthwhile endeavor. Going through this process, we been able to smooth out the debt service payment for the remainder of the bonds and smooth out the bills we are required to pay. Paying the debt is going to be a good bit easier now.”
Board president Jason Spears said he was pleased with the outcome.
“When we started this, we talked about having the same bookends as far as when the debt would be paid off in 2024 and we were also able to regulate our payment schedule,” Spears said. “The third benefit is that we were able to adjust our local mills where everything is fully funded as long as the mill stays where it’s at through that period of time. I’m really pleased.”
CMSD business manager Tammie Holmes followed Young’s presentation with good news of her own.
“When we last discussed federal funding, we anticipated that we would get $1.9 million in Title I funds,” Holmes said. “So I’m excited to say that were allocated $3.3 million, which is $1.4 million over what we expected.
“Also, the last time we discussed this, we did not anticipate any Title II funds, so we’re excited to announce that we did receive an allocation of $408,000 in Title II funds.”
Title I provides financial assistance to schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families to help ensure that all children meet state academic standards.
Title II funds are intended to increase the number of high-quality, effective teachers and principals. Funds can be used for a variety of purposes, from recruiting and retaining teachers to reducing class sizes, or providing professional development.
With an additional $240,000 in collections yet to be received, roughly $652,000 will be added to the bottom line.
The board was noticeably pleased with all of the new information.
“To recap, this budget will see an excess on our balance,” Spears said. “We won’t have to take anything from our fund balance. We have fully funded paying our debt and we have refinanced our bond through 2024 and save a substantial amount of money. Hey, I’m proud of that.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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