Three Zeros Costing Fannin Schools $570,000

A recent error in the county’s tax digest has significantly raised the digest above the true figure. This mistake is costing and causing the school system major budget short falls.
The mistake was adding three additional 0’s to a piece of property within the county.
At a school board work session on Tuesday Oct. 8th Superintendent Mark Henson explained the mishap,

”There was an error in the digest. It was attributed to a printing error on Harris Computers’ parcel of land. There were three zeros added to the land value; so, where the land assessed at $100,000 they made it worth $100,000,000.”

This property’s large value was figured into the digest artificially inflating the digest. How does this affect the schools?

When the school board levied the millage rate in the summer, the board levied it to multiple against the digest that was submitted by the county tax commissioner. After the correction was fixed, the county’s digest decreased.

This means that the school systems will face a short fall. This short fall means the board is going to collect $574,446 less than what they had projected.

At the beginning of the year, the school board moved $221,768 out of the Committed Fund to cover what the millage increase did not cover. This means the school is already operating in a deficit.

Henson told the board,

“We hoped to be in better positioning at this point in the year, but with that being said due to foresight from this board, previous boards and superintendents we have funds that we can move over to cover this cost.”

Henson would state that this would be his recommendation to the board on Thursday night at their regular monthly meeting.

Henson informed the board of all the other options as well.

1. Keep the same budget and realize unanticipated shortfall
2. Have the board approval a budget amendment and eliminate the deficit
3. Do a combination of the above two options

“This is a hardship, but right now we can still keep 180 days of school for our kids, offer all extracurricular activities, and keep our full plate of academics and our music and art.”

Without the committed funds, the school board would have had to taken out a loan.

Stay with FYN as the story updates on Thursday when the board is set to take action.