Plans revisions as average daily membership shifts

The Camp Verde Unified School District unanimously adopted its nearly $18,947,891 million FY27 budget following its public hearing on July 14.

While the legislature finished its session shortly after the proposed budget was approved, the numbers did not change.

“We’ll wait and see what our enrollment is, because you’re always wondering if you’re up or down,” Superintendent Steve Hicks said. “That [can make] a huge difference for our budget. So if we’re way off, we’ll probably revise it in September. If we’re pretty similar to what our budget is, we’ll just wait till December to revise.”

The state — which, according to last year’s budget, gave the district $13.4 million of its revenue, more than three times the $4.05 million it received from local sources — decides how much it gives districts based on an Average Daily Membership. This can fluctuate throughout the year as students drop out, move away or come into the district late.

Hicks said the budget is almost always planned conservatively in the beginning. In recent years, since the district is among the few growing districts in the region, it has allowed it to increase the budget during its winter and spring revisions.

“We drop ADM or enrollment down just a little bit just to be safe,” Hicks told the board. “But also, the next budget will have a minimum of 2% increase.”

The state caps its additional spending for schools at about 2%.

Since it provides funding throughout the year depending on ADM, the districts don’t know how much assistance they’ll receive from the state.

Because of this limitation, CVUSD usually copies its budget from the previous year’s.

“Except [this year] when we have it in August, with enrollment, we’ll be looking at the 10-day drop,” which Hicks said is normal to see in the first couple of weeks. “[We’ll] see how many students we have, and get a better idea of what our ADM is going to look at that time.”