School Budget Goes Back to the Drawing Board

The Jefferson County School Board declined to approve the 2016/17 fiscal year budget proposal at Tuesday’s Called Meeting. Last week the School Board sent the budget document back to the Department of Education for work with instructions to return a document that showed $253,000 in cuts and $200,000 in capital projects funding without cutting from employee raises, textbooks or substituting used school buses for new school bus purchases.

On Tuesday, the Department of Education returned with a budget that largely met the necessary cuts but did not include any funds set aside for capital projects. Previously, the Board had stated concerns regarding issues at the Jefferson County High School Baseball Field and potential sewer needs at Rush Strong School, as well as other pending projects. Currently, there is no money allocated for capital projects from the Jefferson County Commission and that will continue to be the case until funds are recouped for the roof collapse at Jefferson County High School Building 8. Funds that would have been allocated to the Department of Education for capital projects are going toward the Building 8 tab and no funds will be released for capital projects from the County until that tab is cleared. Board Members said last week that they do not want to move forward with the budget document until funds are set aside for necessary capital projects. The Department of Education received around $2.5 million dollars in additional BEP funds and most of that was earmarked for employee salaries. In addition to employee salaries, the Department of Education showed increases in the Maintenance/Operations budget of $409,000 and the Technology Budget of $122,000.

The Department of Education will rework the budget proposal to identify funds that can be used toward capital projects and make a third presentation when the Board meets again Thursday evening. Looming deadline for the Department of Education budget proposal is May 23, 2016, when it will be presented to the Jefferson County Budget Committee for approval.

Source: K. Depew, News Director