H-F’s budget for this 2022-23 school year is $63.8 million, up from the 2021-22 budget of $61.8 million.  

The budget, approved by the Board of Education during their Sept. 20 meeting, can be found under the “district info” tab of H-F’s website.

Chief School Business Official Lawrence Cook said there’s one reason for this increased budget: “Inflation, inflation, inflation.”

Cook continued to explain that “as the rates of goods and services increase, so does the District’s expenditures.  With increased cost in everything from copier paper, to food, to transportation services, to cleaning services etc., the District occurs those cost increases.”

The overall projected expenditures (how much is expected to be spent this year) are up $2.07 million from last year.  Salaries take up the largest portion of the budget and are up 3.21% from last year, purchased services up 12.26%, supplies and materials up 28.29%, and out of district tuition up 5.60%.

Cook said that “the amount of revenue the District has collected for each of the last four plus years has been relatively the same, and my office presents a balance budget annually.  Therefore, the expenditures are relatively the same each year, including this fiscal year.”

Some major projects being worked on this year are the new science wing that will begin construction summer 2023 and the culinary and fashion design area renovation.  The total budget for renovations, constructions and design is $4.75 million.

The science wing will be an entirely new area that will potentially be net-zero.  Some features will include breakout rooms, larger classrooms and a learning commons.

Other than these two projects, “no other department will be more significantly impacted by this budget than any other department,” according to Cook.

According to minutes of the School Board finance committee, “[Edward] Wright overviewed drawings of the culinary and fashion design area vacated to make room for the culinary area with a projected cost of $2.7 – $3 million…The facility is projected to be ready for the fall of 2023.”

The committee did also walk through possible alternatives for the project.

As for revenue, our total projected revenue is $63.5 million, compared to last year’s revenue of $59.4 million.  

The gap between the projected revenue and projected expenditures ($63.3 million) creates a surplus of almost $200,000.  

Cook said that “the slight projected surplus is for unforeseen expenditures and/or to help cover the cost of future operation and maintenance projects.”

The percentages of revenue coming from each source has not changed significantly between last and this year.  Last year, 1% of our revenue was from Federal grants, which we don’t have this year.  The largest source of revenue last year, Real Estate taxes (62%, which is $35 million), is now 59% ($37 million).  Otherwise, the rest of the sources of revenue stayed very similar between this year and last.  

The other sources of revenue are, in order of most to least financially significant, evidence based funding, restricted grants, and other local revenue.