Thursday, July 19, 2007

Board Members Revise Proposed School Budget

   Members of the Lawrence County School Board met in special session Monday evening, revising their proposed 2007-2008 financial plan.

   Although school board members had already formulated their budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, that proposal was voided last week when members of the Lawrence County Commission’s Budget Committee voted to appropriate the same portion of the property tax to the school system as they received last year. The school board had requested increases in funding.

   The school board had requested that the county fund a total budget of $18.1 million. That amount included $14 million to cover the school system’s building program, $500,000 for technology improvements, and $300,000 for the purchase of school buses.

   During Monday’s meeting, school board members voted to purchase five, 66-passenger school buses at a total cost of $300,000, rather than the 78-passenger buses they had intended to purchase. In addition, they will request that the county commission provide them $50,000 toward the purchase of a sixth bus.

   With the same $1.12 portion of the property tax to work with, the school board is looking at $131,000 in growth money to consider. Board members are opting to use money from the board’s fund balance to provide a 15¢ per hour pay increase for the system’s support staff. This $62,000 total will help to offset increases the staff must pay in health insurance costs.

   The new budget proposal will now be presented to the budget committee for consideration.

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