School budget gets nod at rescheduled meeting

    After correcting figures that were wrong in the advertised 2021-22 budget document, board members approved the Chase County Schools’ budget at a special Sept. 20 meeting.
    Held at 7:30 that morning, the meeting allowed the board  to approve the budget in time to be filed that same day with the state. Budgets were due that day.
    Nothing in the reworked budget affected the advertised tax askings or the levy, the latter dropping about 1 cent compared to 2020-21. Tax askings will be up about $26,000 during 2021-22.
    Tax askings for the 2021-22 year are $8,423,471 compared to last year’s $8,398,374, or .0029%.
    The levy dropped from .671011 to .663577.
    The overall ‘21-22 budget stands at $12,689,014 compared to $11,485,458.52 from the previous year.
    Supt. Adam Lambert said earlier that, while the 10.4% budget increase is significant, much of it is due to the fact the state required schools to include COVID money in their budget expenditures, although those dollars did not come from local property taxes.
    Figures that were incorrect in the original advertised document were for the Bond, Building and Qualified Capitol Purpose Undertaking funds, which, in turn, affected some of the totals.