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Schools

Bartow Schools Review Budget, Foresee Furloughs

The school board will approve its fiscal year 2011-2012 school year budget June 30 at 6 p.m.

No new changes were made to the proposed fiscal year 2012 budget after the held a special called public hearing meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss the system’s finances. No member of the public spoke either..

Chief Financial Officer Todd Hooper said the current budget proposal would cause the school system to dip into its general funding balance by $6.8 million to cover total expenditures in the 2011-2012 school year, after the system had a decrease in state funding.

The cuts, will create a $15.8 million shortfall and will cost the county an addition 3 percent cut this coming fiscal year on top of the 4.5 percent cut they saw last year.

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“The projected fund balance that we have based on the budget is $15.3 million,” said Hooper. “And with our revenue totaling $103.2 million, we would deduct the total expenditures which are $110.1 million. [That] would give us a projected, and that’s a key term, projected, ending fund balance of 2012 of $8.5 million.”

Hooper said that the $8.5 million would be below the state-recommended 10 percent of the total expenditures.

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Superintendent John Harper said the general fund balance is a set of funds which allows Bartow County schools to fluidly pay teachers throughout the year and is set up as an emergency fund in the event of a disaster.

“Teachers essentially work only nine months, but they get 12 months of a paycheck,” said Harper. “And taxation only comes at a certain time of the year, so in July, August and September, the fund balance makes those payrolls. When we go out for Thanksgiving, fund balance gives [teachers] that check before the state gives us our money. When we go out for Christmas, same scenario. The state hasn’t sent us their money yet, but we give them their checks. When it gets down to the point that it is right now, we have to be very careful with what we do.”

Harper said since the fund balances of the projected fiscal year 2012 budget is tight, teachers probably will not be receiving checks before the holidays like they had been previously.

“That doesn’t seem like a bad thing, but most people live paycheck to paycheck, and gosh, now, I don’t have money for Christmas or Thanksgiving,” said Harper. “So it has the ability to impact the community when we do that. And if we had a catastrophe, then that could be a problem for us.”

This year, Harper said that the state did not get the money to schools on time, so general fund balance kicked in so there would be no issues.

“A lot of teachers [in several other counties] bounced checks because their school systems issued those checks, and didn’t have the fund balance to cover it,” said Harper. “We did. Our teachers never knew that occurred.”

Hooper said that the proposed budget could change by next week as the financial reports for the end of fiscal year 2011 roll in, therefore, changing the general fund balance.

“As we go through the next week, we will get a better feel for that number,” said Hooper, referring to the general fund balance. “Hopefully, it will have a positive impact and we will see this picture improve.”

Harper said that the board has been working closely with the cabinet and with the principals, gathering suggestions on how to narrow spending with the school system’s budget.

“A couple of years ago we had $123 million budget,” said Harper. “Next year, you see, we’re going to have $101 million budget and one of the things we’ve been able to do, with the support and help from everyone, [and] through attrition, is we have been able to not really lay anyone off, even with a $22 million dollar reduction in budget.”

Harper said that last year officials eliminated Spanish at the middle school level and parent coordinators, however, the majority of the people were hired back in a position in the system.

“In the past three years, those have been the only people who have really been affected,” said Harper. “It’s the people who have retired and left the school system, or attrition, which has taken care of the positions that we would have had to have lost.”

However, Harper said that the budget hasn’t affected student-teacher ratios in the classrooms, and the system has lost approximately 300 students this year so that the system did not have to re-hire teachers.

“We’ve looked at everything we can to try and provide instruction inside the classroom, that was our first priority and we’ve been able to do that successfully,” said Harper.

Harper said that the system will be looking at some furlough days and doubling-up job responsibilities to aid with the budget cuts.

“It’s 236 for five days,” said Harper, referring to the furlough days. “And that a substantial part of that savings.  Plus, we’ve cut back a lot of positions.”

The board will meet again to make a final decision on the budget next week during another special called meeting on June 30 at 6 p.m.

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