Eastern Pulaski School Corporation to Operate on Calendar Year Budget in 2015

 The Eastern Pulaski School Board members approved a resolution to move from a recognized fiscal year budget to a calendar year budget.

Superintendent Dan Foster explained the school corporation is one of two school corporations in the state that operate on a fiscal year budget which is from July 1 to June 30. All other school corporations in the state follow a calendar year budget which is from January to December.

Foster added that having a fiscal year budget makes it difficult to use an online system that the State uses called Gateway which helps develop and keep track of calendar year budgets. Eastern Pulaski schools can’t utilize that software with the specifics of a fiscal year budget so things need to be done by hand which can to lead to human error.

Foster said changing to a calendar year will also make it easier for other planning purposes.

“When information comes out, we have to adjust all of the timelines and the dates and everything to fit our calendar because we’re only one of two schools doing that,” said Foster. “We did talk to the DLGF and found out that the board needed to pass a resolution.”

The switch may sound complicated, but Foster assures that it’s not.

“Our next budget will be a calendar year and we’ll have to make the first six months of that match the last six months of the budget we just passed. It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

The calendar year budget will take effect in January 2015. The board will need to make budget decisions for July through December sometime this fall.