Government entities are prohibited from spending more than the budget they publish, so they routinely budget more than they will actually spend to stay under their limit. A little wiggle room may be understandable, but too much can lead to unnecessary property tax increases.
A print-only article in the Anderson County Review found an example of that with the USD 365 Garnett school district. The table below shows the district’s budgets for all spending except for debt payments over the last five years exceeded actual spending by about $3 million per year, or 22% above actual spending. Each year, the excess budget amount exceeded property taxes collected for the Local Option Budget and Capital Outlay.
Dave Trabert, CEO of the Sentinel’s parent company, Kansas Policy Institute, explains why the Garnett School District could have reduced property taxes with better budgeting.
“First of all, school districts are not required to budget for any particular amount of spending. A lot of district spending can be moved from one fund to another, so local school boards can budget less in Supplemental General and Capital Outlay funds to reduce the property tax needed in those funds. The Garnett Budget at a Glance report shows a beginning cash balance of $2.3 million in the Capital Outlay fund, and the district is only budgeting to spend $1.1 million. That means they don’t need to add the $792,000 in property tax budgeted for the 2026 school year.
“Budgeting to spend 22% more than was actually spent in prior years indicates that the Garnett district can certainly do a better job at budgeting. For example, USD 329 Wabaunsee has only averaged a 5% variance above actual over the last five years.
“USD 365 also has more money in other cash reserves than is necessary. The beginning balance totals in the table above, which don’t include cash reserves for debt service, average more than 30% of the coming year’s actual spending. The state average is less than 20%, and Wabaunsee only averages 14% in reserves. Twenty years ago, the state average was just 12% and dozens of districts had less than 10% in cash reserves. Better budgeting and careful cash management will allow districts to reduce property taxes.”
Trabert says school boards and superintendents need better budget training, and that is one of the services provided by another KPI subsidiary, the Kansas School Board Resource Center.
