That’s because the county school system could receive even fewer state dollars than they had anticipated, due to Gov. Timothy Kaine’s announcement this week of statewide education funding cutbacks, School Board Chairman Robina Rich Bouffault said. The board will have a better idea of what the bottom line will be following action by state lawmakers in Richmond, who are expected to wrap up their work on the commonwealth’s budget by March 8, school officials said.

As a consequence, the School Board will delay adopting its budget until March 10, and will present it to the Board of Supervisors on March 11.

Last November, state education officials informed the county that a change in its composite index score would result in a loss of nearly $850,000. The index measures a locality’s ability to pay for educating its students.

The proposed $26,009,530 budget for fiscal 2009 includes a 4.5 percent pay raise for teachers and staff, 10 percent for instructional assistants, and 2 percent for bus drivers, at a cost of $687,854.

It also eliminates six jobs -- director of maintenance and transportation, director of administrative technology, finance director/budget analyst, athletic director, science coordinator and math coordinator -- cutting expenses by $567,908.

And it adds four new classroom positions -- in science at Clarke County High School, in special education at Johnson Williams Middle School, in elementary foreign language, and in alternative education -- at a cost of $181,042.

In addition, the proposed budget includes a 10 percent increase to pay for employees’ health insurance premiums, at a cost of $102,402.

And it provides $300,000 for ball field lights at the high school and $75,000 for a new bus, among the almost $1.1 million for capital improvement projects.

Next year’s proposed budget is $4,471 less than the current year’s budget of $26,014,001. The overall budget covers the school system’s operating, food service, debt service, and school capital funds. The fiscal 2009 operating fund alone is proposed at $20,631,452, compared with $20,319,438 during the current year.

Only one resident, Tony Parrott of Boyce, spoke at Tuesday night’s public hearing on the budget, asking the board for information on how the school system would reassign the duties now being performed in the positions to be cut and about state funding allocations.

In other action, the board voted unanimously to authorize the Fairfax-based engineering firm of Gannett Fleming to start work on an $88,800 feasibility study of four potential sites for a new high school: 71 acres just south of the existing school on Westwood Road that the Salvation Army has proposed to donate, 40 acres across Westwood Road owned by resident Beverley Byrd, Jr., 40 acres in nearby Battlefield Estates owned by developer Alton Echols, and possible addition and renovation at the current high school.

Bouffault said the board hopes to have the firm’s findings by late April.