Caldwell Transfers are a matter of dollars and cents.

Prior to the 2007-2008 school year, Brownsboro ISD used the small but steady growth in local property values as a hedge against inflation.

During the 2006-2007 school year, state school funding changed from a formula-driven system that used a combination of students enrolled in school, weighted class enrollment, local maintenance and operations tax rate (1.04 per hundred dollars of valuation) and local property values to determine state monies that would accrue to the district.

Under this system, with- out a tax-rate increase, growth in school funding was dependent on the increase in local property values and the weighted class enrollment.

District maintenance and operations dollars acrrue to the district from three main scources — local taxes (approximately $6.6 million), state money (approximately 11.8 million) and federal money (2.57 million).

Under the state’s current school-funding system, a frozen dollar amount per pupil in weighted average daily attendance was set at the amount of state and local dollars earned per student in the 2005-2006 school year ($4,703 per pupil in weighted average daily attendance).

The frozen dollar amount was the amount earned under the former formuladriven system described above.

Currently, the district’s combined state and local monies for maintenance and operations depends solely on the number of students in weighted average daily attendance.

When the number of students increases, maintenance and operations monies increase.

When the number of students decreases, maintenance and operations monies decrease.

During the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years, approximately 100 transfers were taken that would not have been taken under prior transfer requirements.

These transfers were taken without any additional expense accruing to the district.

This additional money (approximately $480,000), plus a one-time payment from the state of approximately half the loss incurred by the district due to the 20-percent local homestead exemption (approximately $400,000), allowed the district to operate with a balanced budget instead of a deficit budget.

It would take an approximate 7.5 cent tax increase to generate the amount of money the hundred transfers generated for the district.

Keep in mind that, under the “hold harmless” funding system, when local property values increase (thereby increasing the local tax money accruing to the district), state dollars decrease a like amount, keeping the district’s maintenance and operations income at the frozen per-student level set by the state.

Common sense indicates these transfers were a good deal for the school district.

Caldwell is superintendent of the Brownsboro Independent School District.