School committee to suggest advancing projects
By Ruth Marlow
When the School Board meets next Monday night, members will be asked to approve a recommendation to get an earlier-than-planned start on some building maintenance and repair projects.
The projects, totaling approximately $275,000, are currently included in the school system’s fiscal 2009 budget request to the Board of Supervisors. They would be shifted instead to the current fiscal 2008 budget.
Projects include painting and replacing windows at the School Board Annex next to Berryville Primary School, painting and flooring work at Boyce Elementary School, flooring work at D.G. Cooley Elementary School and Berryville Primary School, renovating doors, lockers, a cooling tower, and cafeteria air conditioning at Clarke County High School, and doing asphalt work at schools.
The board’s finance committee is making the proposal to take advantage of a surplus anticipated in the overall county budget during fiscal 2008, which ends June 30, said committee and board chairman Robina Rich Bouffault.
County supervisors could consider using part of that estimated $300,000 general fund surplus for the improvements to enable them to better balance revenues with expenses during fiscal 2009, which begins July 1. It is expected that the county will have an estimated $588,000 revenue shortfall, Joint Administrative Services Director Thomas Judge told Bouffault and committee vice chairman Janet Creager Alger last Friday.
To shift the projects, the Board of Supervisors would have to approve a supplemental appropriation to the School Board’s fiscal 2008 budget.
Another advantage in advancing the projects is that the work could be done during the summer months when students are out of school, Judge, Bouffault, and Alger pointed out.
In other updates, Judge also told Bouffault and Alger that state lawmakers made funding changes that will result in county schools receiving approximately $9,500 more during the current fiscal year. But that will be nearly offset by a $6,754 loss in state revenues during the next fiscal year, he noted. Bouffault said the school system could “absorb” that loss through good management practices rather than ask supervisors for more money.
Bouffault also voiced concern about a drop this year in the schools’ average daily membership to 2,147, compared with the 2,255 school officials had expected.
If that trend continues, she noted, the school system could get even fewer state dollars. Currently, the state provides approximately $3,000 per student annually.
The schools’ proposed fiscal 2009 operating budget is $25.3 million, compared with $26 million in the current year.
The fiscal 2009 budget anticipates nearly $9 million in state aid – down from $9.8 million in the current fiscal year. And it seeks $11.3 million in funding from the county, compared with $10.6 million in the current year.
Contact the reporter at rmarlow@timespapers.com