School funding and budgets are complicated and nuanced. One feature, determined following an annual audit, is a fund balance.

School funding and budgets

Before each new fiscal year, which begins every July 1st, school districts and charters are busy setting their budgets. Districts and charters weigh their assets against their liabilities and determine a fund balance: the leftover amount when liabilities are subtracted from assets. Simply put, a savings account.

When a fund balance exceeds zero dollars, it is considered positive, meaning there’s leftover money (“in the black”). If the fund balance is less than zero, it is negative, meaning that at the point in time a district’s fund balance is established, it is spending more than it will have (“in the red”).

If a district spends preci

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