ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 2, 1996 TAG: 9604020035
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
The Pulaski County School Board is asking the county Board of Supervisors for an additional $371,612 in local funds for its 1996-97 school budget.
Even with more county money, the total budget will give the school system less operating money next year than it has this year.
The reason is complicated. State funding is providing $730,096 in new money, but about half of that increase is earmarked for technology initiatives and another quarter for retirement funding. That limits the School Board's flexibility in using it.
In fact, the locality must put up $442,320 of its own to match the state's extra technology money next year.
At the same time, the county schools will lose about $350,000 in state operating money because of changes in the distribution formula. The changes tend to favor urban over rural areas.
Also, Pulaski County lost enrollment again this year, another factor in determining state money.
The proposed budget includes a 2.3 percent raise for all school employees, the addition of an elementary counselor, psychologist, part-time band assistant, two assistant principals and two more teachers in the lower grades to keep the class sizes down.
Superintendent Bill Asbury pointed out that initiatives in an earlier study budget, which came closer to meeting county educational needs, totaled more than $2 million above this budget's $26 million figure. And every educational initiative in that earlier budget could be defended, he said.
"I'm just uncomfortable with some of the cuts we did have to make," School Board member Jeff Bain said last Thursday, at the public hearing on the proposed budget. The board presented the proposal to the Board of Supervisors Monday night.
The cuts included $77,000 from what had been proposed in medical premiums and $10,000 from staff development.
Asbury said some budget items had been trimmed to dangerous levels. "This is a tight, tight budget," he said.
"I think we're all concerned about the textbooks," board member Ron Chaffin said. The proposed budget calls for using $100,000 in funds left from this year's budget on language arts textbooks next year. Textbook costs, Asbury said, have escalated beyond reason.
The School Board thought that the increase it is asking would require no increase in local taxes.
LENGTH: Medium: 51 linesby CNB