The Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board has approved the first revision to its fiscal year 2025-26 budget, adopting updated figures that reflect state form changes and additional funding.
The board passed the revision on a unanimous vote.
Finance Director Jackie Mattinen presented the updates Sept. 9, explaining that the most significant changes stem from adjustments required by the state
“The proposed and adopted budget was on the old forms,” she said. “So we now have the new forms from the state. So that represents the majority of the changes here this evening.”
Among the key adjustments was an increase in the district’s weighted student count for the maintenance and operations budget.
Mattinen said a correction in data entry for free and reduced-price lunch add-ons and gifted add-ons resulted in a gain of 100 in average daily membership, a key figure in the state’s budget formula. That then resulted in a $520,000 increase to the revenue control limit, she said.
The revision also incorporates Proposition 123 funding and free and reduced add-ons, which were left out of the adopted budget because of uncertainty at the state level.
With those additions, the district’s maintenance and operations budget rose by $3.04 million to $285.86 million.
“We were conservative when we proposed and adopted, and we didn’t know at the time what the state was going to do with Prop 123 or the other add-ons,” Mattinen said. “So we left them off.”
On the capital side, while the student count formula was unchanged, the revision added $750,000 in one-time state aid that had been omitted during adoption. That amount increased the district’s unrestricted capital budget to $48.74 million.
In addition, the budget correction included $76,875 in federal funds for the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program and the Systemic School Improvement program, which had initially been entered as zero.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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