The Warren County School District received some news to be thankful for this week.

At a meeting of the school board’s finance committee, Director of Business Services Jim Grosch gave an update on the 2020-21 budget.

“The surplus is $540,000,” Grosch said. “We were projecting a fairly significant deficit.”

A number of income sources more than counteracted additional COVID-related spending last year.

Real estate taxes came in $860,000 higher than expected and income taxes added another $600,000 over projection. It was also a good year for real estate sales – the district brought in $300,000 in realty transfer taxes.

The district’s virtual academy generated $1.4 million from other districts’ students.

The district also shut down its buildings for weeks in the middle of the school year due to the pandemic.

For the 2021-22 budget year, Grosch recommended that the board not raise taxes above the state generated index.

“The base index is 3.4 percent or 1.88 mills,” he said. “The adjusted index is 4.9 percent or 2.7 mills.”

In order to raise the tax rate more than the index, the district would have to announced its plan to do so, meet earlier budgeting deadlines, and either raise taxes due to expenditures that fit certain allowable exceptions or take the issue to the voters for approval.

The good news may not be long-lived.

While the district didn’t know what to expect during the budget process for last year, Grosch expects to be much closer to the mark for this year.

“With the 2021-22 budget, we were not as cautious with our budgeting with COVID,” Grosch said.

That budget was approved with an expected $1.387 million deficit, he said.