The Shadow
WARM SPRINGS – The Bath County School Board continues to crunch budget figures.
Tuesday night, the school board held a public hearing on the budget, and while no one spoke at the hearing, Dr. David Smith, superintendent of Bath County Public Schools, provided an overview of the budget crunch facing school officials.
While the Virginia General Assembly continues to hammer out a budget in Richmond, Bath County school officials are basing their early budget projections on figures offered by former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, but Kaine’s budget proposal “of course is subject to quite a bit of change,” Dr. Smith said.
Dr. Smith said Bath County can anticipate a net difference of $517,890 in 2010-11, compared with the current budget. That includes a $78,000 loss in state funding and $437,000 in federal revenues.
“That’s a larger one-year loss than any that we’ve sustained in the last two years,” Dr. Smith said.
School officials can also expect a $117,000 or 12.5 percent increase in health insurance costs, while Bath County’s contribution to the Virginia Retirement System is expected to increase $80,954.
Local funding of the current 2009-10 fiscal year budget, excluding food services, is $8.8 million. A 5 percent reduction in that total would equal $440,000, while a 5.9 percent reduction would equate to $517,000.
“We’re at a much greater loss level than if we were just planning on a 5 percent reduction,” Dr. Smith explained.
Considering all requests from schools and combining those requests with known increased expenditures results in a $9.4 million budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, or a 1.5 percent increase over the current budget.
“That is significantly higher than the total that we come to of $8.2 million with Gov. Kaine’s budget and assuming level local funding,” Dr. Smith explained.
The 2010-11 budget is also based on 35 fewer students attending Bath County Public Schools.
“That is just a very brief overview of the starting point for discussions on the Bath budget,” Dr. Smith said. “We’ll be sharing with the board the additional information from the Senate and House as soon as we get it.”
In other business Tuesday night, the school board:
– received an update on career and technical education from Jackie Stephenson, CTE director at Bath County High School, who explained that February was recognized as Career and Technical Education Month in Virginia;
– approved an April 15-18 trip to Virginia Beach for the Family Career and Community Leaders of America state leadership conference;
– approved an April 16-18 trip to Reston for the Future Business Leaders of America state conference;
– approved the Valley Elementary School seventh grade field trip to Washington, D.C., June 8-9;
– approved a policy change in which applicants or employees of Bath County Public Schools would pay for fingerprinting, criminal record checks and abuse and neglect checks, effective immediately. The school board was paying for these checks;
– held first readings of various Virginia School Boards Association policies;
– approved the appointment of Marco Cucci as Bath County High School boys soccer coach;
– approved the appointment of Will Fields as head varsity football coach;
– approved the appointments of Robert Plecker and Jeremy Cutlip as varsity assistant football coaches;
– approved the appointment of Shawn Loudermilk as varsity assistant football coach and head jayvee coach;
– approved the appointment of Heidi Hewitt as a substitute bus driver and vehicle driver;
– approved the appointment of Becky Hise as a vehicle driver;
– accepted the resignation of Don Hansford, a vehicle driver.
