FY2021 Budget
Proposed One-Time Bonus to staff for FY2021

During the pandemic and FY2021 most businesses also closed, which brought a high level of uncertainty on future State income revenue. The state messaged that school funding could be highly impacted by the news and informal communications with school representatives. Some schools announced that they were considering staff cuts, including teachers’ layoffs. Based on lack of clear guidance on per Pupil Tuition during the preparation of the FY21 budget, the Finance Committee and the Board of Trustees approved a FY2021 budget, which prioritized maintaining all personnel, froze spending except for essentials.

The school year 2020-2021 started in September –remotely- and the state still did not confirm the level of funding per student. During the first few months of FY2021, the budget was reviewed and changed six times.

In December, because of unofficial state guidance and messaging for the Charter School Association that per Pupil Tuition would be significantly impacted during the year, Finance Committee (via Treasurer) asked the Leadership team to only spend on necessary purchases. The message cascaded to Principals, Teachers, and every corner of FRCS.

A couple of months before the end of the fiscal year, the Finance Committee met to review, among other things, the current year’s financial statements and the budget for the school year 2021-2022.

Although expected, the state did not cut school funding. In addition, there were several special grants to cover COVID-related expenses, and as mentioned, spending was kept to essentials.

It should be noted that the school did ask our local creditor, Eastern Savings Bank, which we have a loan with permission to delay payments on our loans should it become needed during the pandemic. The bank approved this; however, we never delayed any payments on our loans this year.   

As a result, we are projecting to end the FY2021 with a sizeable operating surplus of over $5 million before Capital spending, Debt service, and Depreciation.

Debt covenants require an Operating Surplus of 1.2x the amount of annual debt service. The projected surplus would imply a multiple over 2x (more than $2 million of cushion).

This recommendation is possible because the school has been financially conservative during the pandemic. As a result, we have a surplus in our FY2021 budget that must be spent by 30JUN2021 or moved to the board’s capital reserves as stipulated by our bonds.  

The Finance Committee recommends that the school pay a one-year bonus of $5,000* to all regular staff including including long-term substitute teachers and $2,500* part-time employees. 

1. The bonus would be paid to staff who worked for the school between 15MAR2020 when the pandemic began and are still employed by Foxborough Regional Charter School as of 15JUN2021. This will be prorated by weeks worked.
2. The bonus is subject to taxes.
3. The bonus is not retroactive to employees whose employment with the school was terminated (voluntarily or involuntarily) before 15JUN2021.
4. The total cost is $1,056,000 plus the additional payroll taxes of $40,000

The Finance Committee has reviewed:

• The proposal with our financial auditing firm, Daniel Dennis & Company LLP, and legal counsel agrees with using the funds this way.  
• Annie Azarloza has asked what other charter schools are doing via the charter school association and found several charter schools are also giving bonuses to their staff this year. 
• Other areas of possible use for the funds and determined this to be the best use of funds.

The Board of Trustees is very proud of our staff for their challenging work over the year during the pandemic. Many learned a new way of working through virtual classrooms. All staff we impacted in some way, and we would like to thank them all for their efforts.  

 

 

FY22 Budget Highlights

Facilities

• 1.4 million budgeted for which only $578,000 will impact the budget. The difference is grant money spending on remediation /reaction to COVID. For example, we removed carpeted floors from the Elementary School fabric walls in the Middle School. This will make surfaces easier to clean. Staff laptops and HVAC controls will also be paid for via grant money for next year. 

Other changes from last year

• Summer Programming increases
• Free transportation for summer school
• A late bus during the school year.

Graduation will be held on 11JUN2021 at 6 pm outdoors this year. It was delayed one week due to a thunderstorm. Katrina Sousa is this year's Valedictorian, and Daniel Currier is the Salutatorian.  Congratulations to both on a wonderful academic achievement.

There are also many winners of the scholarships that should be celebrated, including Katrina Sousa, Daniel Currier, Olivia Robyn Wood, Amanda Widrow, Tiffany Lam, Damien Valme, Esha Rakesh, Nicole Stagg, Tanisha Garhwal, Sravani Kaza & Leyton Aldrick.

The Middle School went to the State Science Fair this year.

We also commend the Adult Learners who graduated from the ESL program. 

The Equity & Inclusion meeting has been postponed until July so that the sub-committees can get in their meetings and Dr Soria can join the team and begin leading it.

The new Middle School Principal joined us for a day to met staff.  The official start date is 01JUL2021.

Krisan Pope, Director of Human Resources, and Matt Harrington, Director of Operations, presented theire annual goals and achievements for this year.  Please see the attached presentations. The Board of Trustees thank them and Matt's staff for all of their hard work during this challenging year

Elementary School 

• Flooring is being reviewed for design and installation plans.  The current thought is to focus on the common areas this summer and classrooms next year.
• The roof does have a twenty year warranty and it is now being reviewed after having been escalated to the owner of the company

K-12 Food Service

• The caterer K12 by Elior was selected to be the vendor for all three schools next year.  They will utilize the same ordering system that is in place for families this year.

School Vans

• One was sold for $5600
• The second van is still for sale

Uninterrupted Power Supply 

• It has arrived but not installed yet. It will be installed after school is out on the 26JUN2021 on the weekend after coordinating with the rest of the school.

FY2022

• Current Enrollment 1780
• The budget 1675
• Cap is 1700
• Families are still notifiing the school of withdrawals
• Devices that were issued to the students will be returned when they withdraw.  

The Foundation will be looking into a road race for the fall.

Nothing at this time

Meeting was held in May

PAG is meeting bi-weekly with an active agenda.

Nothing at this time

Meeting was held in May

The Board of Trustees thanked both Annie Azarloza & Heidi Berkowitz for their efforts this year, taking on a more significant role to help us through this extraordinary year of a pandemic without an Executive Leader for most of it.

The Finance Committee may need to ask for another meeting in June and know sometime next week if it is required to be scheduled.