The Plush Carryover Of years past is no more.

However, said Kingfisher Superintendent Andy Evans, the financial recovery is taking place.

Kingfisher Public Schools is expected to have a balance of around $1 million as it enters the 2025-26 fiscal year, which starts July 1.

The exact amount won’t be known until the end of the fiscal year as some reimbursements are still filtering into the district.

As of mid-June, the projected carryover was just under $964,000.

But, said Evans, that number could go up by anywhere from $300,000 to $650,000 after all of the FY25 reimbursements are received.

“It depends on the speed of the state Department of Education’s reimbursements,” Evans said, noting that only the monies received prior to June 30 will show as carryover.

That figure is a steep decline from recent years, but wasn’t unexpected.

KPS started the year with about $3.36 million in reserves, which itself was less than half of the year before.

But during FY25, Kingfi sher’s encumbrances will be $16.97 million and the projected revenue will only hit about $14.57 million.

The district was able to increase its appropriations for the fiscal year up to $17.3 million, a move that was approved during last Monday’s school board meeting.

Allowing for the revenue increase were federal program funds not being in the original appropriation, excess collections in gross production, a one-time payment of money from the FY24 teacher pay raise outside of the state aid formula and a small increase in state aid due to the lowered revenue from ad valorem in the estimate of needs.

That drop in revenue occurred last fall when the Kingfisher County Excise Board voted to amend the district’s estimate of needs, which put the burden of paying an annual installment for a civil lawsuit settlement on the district and not its taxpayers.

That amount neared $2 million ($1.25 million plus interest).

That occurred at about the same time Evans took over as interim superintendent after the passing of former Superintendent David Glover.

Evans was later hired as Kingfisher’s full-time superintendent.

In response to the move by the excise board, the district lowered its payroll budget from $14.36 million to $13.2 million last December by removing about 20 positions in a reduction in force.

The district also had to pay out about $750,000 in leftover billing from FY24 for the Gilmour Elementary School remodel project and it also spent some $560,000 during the year for HVAC systems throughout the district. Most of that was at Heritage Elementary.

As for revenues, about 60 percent ($8.7 million) came from the state level, including about $3.3 million in gross production taxes.

The district received about $3.2 million in local taxes, including $2.8 million of that in ad valorem collections.

There was just under $800,000 collected from the county 4 mill ad valorem tax as well.

Federal monies making their way to the district totaled just under $1.8 million.

The largest bulk of the district’s expenditures was salaries and benefits, which tallied $13.28 million.

The district’s carryover in FY 2023 was $8.1 million and in 2024 it was $8.9 million.

Since being hired, Evans has worked to better align the expenditures and revenues.

“The district’s financial status is much improved, but still fragile,” he said. “It’s strange to say that when we have cut into the carryover by $1.8 million, but we have adjusted our budget to accommodate the reality of the current revenue stream.”

Evans said the balance forward will start to rebuild over the next few years, but he does offer some caution.

“Recovery,” he said, “can be a slow process.”