The budget task force of the Waterloo School Board conducted its final meeting March 4, ultimately agreeing there was no space within the coming school year’s budget to abate the tax levy approved in December.

Totaling $26,438,060, this year’s levy grew by 9.02 percent from the $24,250,325 requested for last fiscal year.

At that regular December meeting, the board heard some criticism from a few members of the public who particularly voiced concern about where these additional funds were being directed.

The board approved the levy along with the creation of a budget task force to evaluate whether or not that levy might be slightly reduced before being finalized.

The committee was proposed  by board member Nathan Mifflin to the apparent surprise of several of his peers on the board, with board members John Caupert and Jodi Burton at the December and January meetings arguing against the need for such a task force as well as how Mifflin went about his proposal.

With the first meeting held Feb. 12, the task force conducted four meetings which saw members of the school board, district staff and members of the community come together in an attempt to find any excessive spending in the current budget that might justify an abatement of the tax levy.

Following thorough and varied discussion over the past few weeks, the group concluded their final meeting seemingly confident that the district was levying the amount of tax funds it requires.

“I would say it sounds to me like we’re not going to be able to abate the levy,” Mifflin said. “What we asked for is what we need.”

Mifflin acknowledged at the start of the first meeting it was entirely possible the task force might advise the school board against abatement in the end.

He added – and several other members of the task force echoed his sentiment throughout the process – that simply conducting this evaluation was worthwhile as it would help reassure the public of the due diligence that goes into the budget.

Russ Thomas, a former Waterloo alderman, said as much toward the end of the final meeting, voicing confidence in the district’s fund management.

“The budget process itself by the people who put it in place shows no extraneous anything to me,” Thomas said. “It seems like it’s done in a good, fine way with checks and balances.”

Each meeting running around an hour and a half with task force members conducting their own review of on the budget between sessions as well as bringing their own knowledge and expertise, discussion was exceptionally varied.

Among the many topics touched on by the committee was the awkward scheduling for the district’s annual budget.

Waterloo Superintendent of Schools Brian Charron acknowledged at one point how difficult it can be for the school board and finance committee to formulate the levy request while not knowing exactly how much funding will be needed when developing the budget for the coming school year several months later.

Major building renovations or repairs, union contract negotiations and other variable or unforeseen costs cause further trouble in the process of requesting and budgeting district funds.

The district’s education fund was a particular concern for the task force  given both its size as the largest fund in the budget and its substantial deficit, requiring a permanent transfer from the working cash fund in the current budget.

Described as the district’s savings account, the working cash fund grew to a respectable amount over the past few years, though Charron remarked that further education fund deficits in the next few budgets could leave that working cash fund depleted.

“You’re currently overspending the Ed. fund by $2.2 million,” Charron said. “If you don’t decrease expenditures in the Ed. fund next year and/or increase revenue, then instead of transferring $750,000 from working cash this year, you’re talking about $2.2 million that you’re having to transfer, so that working cash fund is gonna disappear in two years, and then you’re gonna have nowhere to get the money if you’re still overspending in the Ed. fund.”

Mifflin emphasized at the first meeting and later that the task force wasn’t intended to discuss cutting teacher salaries, programming funding or other matters which might directly affect staff or students.

These being some of the largest spending items within the education fund, the task force at times spoke about smaller areas to save money within the fund, though discussion returned on several occasions to the great need for support in this area.

“My fear is there’s a day where I have to provide to the board, ‘Here’s all the things that we provide in this district. On the left side are all the things that you are required by law to provide, and on the right side are all the things like pre-K, athletics, all extracurriculars, all the things that are not required,’” Charron said. “We don’t need to have a nurse in every building. We don’t have to have a social worker in every building, those are things that we have invested in because we think they’re important for kids. And there may be a time where we have to take a hard look at those things.”

Though not on the table for saving money as mentioned, salaries still came up in conversation on at least one occasion.

The task force discussed the district’s struggle to keep its salaries competitive with other districts, with Charron noting the school board’s “generosity” during past contract negotiations and indicating the board might not be able to be so generous in future.

Other small areas of current or future district saving were touched on, with maintenance director Will Hulett describing how the district saves some money by frequently trading in equipment and how they might save funds by hiring new staff to do specialized repairs in-house rather than contracting such expensive work.

Among district staff, technology media specialist Amber Cruser noted that folks in the district regularly consider cost when it comes to their work.

“I think it’s now just the culture that we analyze before it even gets anywhere else, ‘Do we need this? What is this going to cost?’ I think across the board still,” Cruser said.

While the task force concluded without finding space for any levy abatement, closing discussion among committee members seemed to indicate this or a similar group could meet again in the future to further evaluate the district’s budget.