MORRISTOWN — The Union Local School District Board of Education met Tuesday and approved the district’s five-year financial forecast with a budget surplus of nearly $2 million in its first year.

Treasurer Janet Hissrich said school finances seem stable in the short term, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made reliable predictions difficult looking as far ahead as 2025.

“2021 is looking very good. We’re still looking at a balance of $1.8 million at the end of the year. Of course, that could change, too. That’s today’s forecast. Many things could change,” she said.

“The biggest thing that the COVID has done to us is it’s affected our state funding. At this point, we’re not looking for much adjustment, if at all, throughout the forecast period, for state funding,” she said.

“That’s a huge part of our funding. That’s probably a high 50 percent, 55 to 58 percent, of our general fund money comes from the state and now we just don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s a new state model floating around the legislature. We’ve got a couple bienniums coming up within the forecast period,” she said. “Until we have some more information … we’ll just kind of look at a stagnate amount.”

Hissrich said the future of the gas and oil industry is also uncertain in the current economic and political climate.

“We’re not sure what’s going to happen there, so we’ve kind of flat-lined that estimation of revenue also, until we know more,” she said.

“The Fiscal Year ’21 and ’22 that we’re currently in look OK, ’23 the balance starts to go down, and of course the last two years of a five-year forecast – actually years three, four and five – there can be so many things that affect those, that I don’t know how it’s going to affect those final years, but as we obtain more information, it’ll be updated.

“We’re keeping a close eye on everything and just updating as we go,” she said. “I can’t stress enough: this forecast is what we know (Tuesday) when it was passed. It can change today.”

Hissrich said expenses associated with the pandemic have been more than $200,000.

“That amount can increase, given the current state,” she said.

Superintendent Ben Porter said preparations and precautions for dealing with the pandemic have been extensive.

“We’ve put air scrubbers in every classroom, which was a pretty expensive cost. We went to water bottle filling stations, the personal protection equipment, some of the extra staffing we put on for cleaning processes and protocol,” he said.

“The first two years are looking very good. Janet’s always cautious and advises caution with the last few years because it’s so far out. Generally speaking, we’re still in pretty good financial shape at this point in time, but there’s still a lot to consider with all that, especially with the uncertainties of state revenue as we go forward.”