Schools prepare for budget cuts

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

HALE

Not knowing how or when the state will fund next fiscal year’s budget, the Warren County School Board passed its first-ever continuation budget Thursday night which will allow the system to operate on this year’s budget until Oct. 1.

“This is a day I hoped would never come,” said Director of Schools Dr. Jerry Hale, who noted the school system stands to lose $2.7 million if the General Assembly fails to find additional revenue. “This is a very alarming time and right now we’re at a standstill until we see what happens in Nashville.”

Hale recently met with system budget director Karen Dillon to discuss preliminary measures which could be taken if the legislature passes the no-new-revenue DOGS budget. Possible measures, he said, included buying no new school buses, beginning no new capital projects and eliminating positions not funded and required by the Better Education Program (BEP), such as teacher assistants.

By implementing such measures, Hale told the board, the system would only have to lay off 39 to 40 teachers instead of the 65 currently estimated by the state Department of Education.

Earlier last week, Hale traveled to Nashville with close to 100 school system directors from across the state to discuss the budget crisis with Education Commissioner Faye Taylor. He said she assured them local school systems would be receiving their June BEP payments as the legislature would likely raid all of the state’s reserve funds to balance this year’s budget.

At the end of the meeting, the group produced a list of waivers the Department of Education would request of the General Assembly upon reduction of the BEP. Proposed waivers for all state school systems include no longer requiring the following (while the BEP is underfunded): instructional planning time for teachers, the 200-day school calendar and the six-and-a-half-hour instructional day.

They also requested the following action to be considered on an individual system basis: increasing maximum class size, allowing split-grade classes, reducing $200 individual teacher instructional supply money, ending duty-free lunch period for teachers, reducing public school nurses, and reducing training for local school board members, principals and administrators.

Despite evidence which may suggest the opposite, Hale remains optimistic the school budget won’t be slashed. “We’re counting on the good faith of the state and still feel positive something good will happen,” he said.