School funds vary widely

By Anna B. Mitchell  

MARCH 7, 2010 9:33 a.m. (1)

Supply closets, staff bear brunt of shortfalls

Student activity funds – where principals deposit proceeds from football games, extended-day programs, yearbook sales and fund-raisers, among other things – vary dramatically in Greenville County.

Auditors in recent months reviewed the 2008-09 academic-year funds for almost half the district’s schools and centers. A Journal review of those funds found the district’s highest poverty schools also had the lowest activity-fund balances.

At stake is a measure of fiscal flexibility at institutions whose district funding has taken dramatic hits in recent years – in the form of cuts to supplies and personnel.

Mountain View Elementary has used money from its balance to pay for a part-time media center clerk, nurse’s aide and new fencing around the playground. The aide, Principal Tommy Hughes said, helped the nurse bypass paperwork and treat more students. At Bell’s Crossing, the money has bought the $300 bulbs needed to keep Promethean Boards running and wireless Internet hubs.

Hughes’ school had a $210,635 balance at the close of 2009, with total spending for the year nearing the $300,000 mark.

Similarly, Lake Forest Elementary has used part of its $38,131 balance to pay for a computer lab manager who would otherwise have been laid off.

“Technology is it,” Principal Cindy Coggins said. “That’s all our kids will be dealing with in the future. We have to have that.”

The district’s student-activities audit revealed balances ranging, at the elementary level, from $2,181 at Cherrydale Elementary to $258,461 at Bell’s Crossing Elementary. At the middle-school level, the student-activity funds ranged from $7,351 at Lakeview to $102,428 at Beck Academy. High schools ranged from $45,170 at Carolina Academy to $391,201 at Mauldin High.

Thomas Chambers, principal at Bryson Elementary, said schools organize fund-raisers to give kids a chance to participate in field trips – which made up the biggest chunk of his school’s $151,457 in spending last year. Bryson had $16,224 in the bank at the close of the year. Fourth and fifth graders traveled to Atlanta and Washington, D.C., respectively.

Accounting for some of the differences among the schools is their size. Bell’s Crossing has more than 1,200 students while Cherrydale has about 450. This means receipts on fund-raisers and yearbook sales increase by a factor of almost three at the larger school.

“Every school is so different depending on your school population and programs,” Coggins said. “But sure, would I like to have Bell’s Crossing’s money? You bet.”

Another key difference is whether an elementary school offers an extended day program – which Cherrydale does not. Elementary schools collect about $1,400 per student annually on these programs, which after expenses can generate tens of thousands in profits for a school.

Parents pay $40 a week to have their child stay at school until 6 p.m.

The amount of profit depends on whether aides are getting paid overtime to stay at the school after hours or other part-time personnel are brought in to run the program, Coggins said. She said her school has gone with the former option, which is more expensive, because the aides know the parents and students.

Still, a key predictor of which schools would have the lowest student-activity fund balance at the close of the 2008-09 school years was poverty.

The seven poorest elementary schools in the field of 22 reviewed – as measured by the percentage of students qualifying for Medicaid or subsidized meals – also had the lowest school-activity fund balances.

The same holds for the nine middle schools reviewed – the three poorest had the lowest balances. And at the high-school level, Carolina Academy stood out – 88.9 percent poverty and a fund balance of $45,170.

The school with the highest balance - $391,201 still in the bank after a year of collecting and spending more than $900,000 – is Mauldin High, which has the lowest secondary-school poverty rate at 28 percent.

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