The Shadow
The Covington City School Board announced that it has a balanced budget of $12,311,072 for fiscal year 2019-2020 to present to city council.
The school board met Monday for a called meeting/work session.
The 2019-20 budget reflects a $774,721 increase over the current fiscal year budget of $11,536,351. The current budget is based on Average Daily Membership of 965 students.
Covington City School Board Chairman Eddy Clemons made the announcement of the school board’s proposed balanced 2019-20 budget.
Prior to Clemons unveiling the budget, the school board entertained a presentation from Kevin Hanna, president of the Covington Education Association, regarding salary increases for the upcoming year.
The budget proposal for fiscal year 2019-2020 has $11,740,229 of total operational revenues, that balances with $11,740,229 in total operational expenses; $501,936 of total cafeteria revenues, that balances with $501,936 of total cafeteria expenses; $68,907 of total textbook revenues, that balances with $68,907 of total textbook expenses.
“We have a balanced budget to present to the city. However, the city has not given us a number on their funding,” Clemons stated.
The $12,311,072 balanced budget that the school board presented Monday features an amount of $3,734,136 coming from the city of Covington, which is around the usual 33 percent that is given to the school board each year.
Clemons continued, “It seems that they (the city) have a pretty tremendous amount of expenses coming up. They feel real concerned about what they are going to be able to do to help us (school board).”
Clemons stated that due to the expenses that the city is currently facing, it is a possibility that a period of starting over would be in effect to come up with a balanced budget to present to the city.
This would be because of the unknown of whether a small or massive funding cut could take place.
Clemons then stressed again that he did not know how much starting over would take place and that it all depends on what the city would be able to appropriate.
He mentioned that the city having to deal with infrastructure issues (road work, bridge work, etc.) played a big part.
Clemons stayed positive by stating that while the city’s funding share is unknown at this time, there is funding coming from Average Daily Membership (ADM) and state monies coming in that would be of help to the school board.
Later in the discussion, Covington City School Board Vice Chairman Bert Baker gave his thoughts on the situation.
“They have been really good on being on the same page as we are in regard to try to get that information early enough so it is easier for everyone involved,” Baker said.
Baker said that the school board was understanding of the city’s situation citing that unknown circumstances could arise.
He was also confident that the city had that same level of understanding as unknown circumstances can arise that the school board would have to deal with.
Covington City Public Schools Superintendent Melinda Snead-Johnson said that she hopes to continue building on the relationship between the school board and city council.
Snead-Johnson stated that she would like to meet at a future Tuesday night work session with Covington City Council to continue conversations.
“We would like to meet with city council at their Tuesday night work session to start those conversations, to talk about how we can work together, how we can move forward, what we can do to consider their needs and for them to consider our needs,”?Snead-Johnson stated.
She continued by saying that a joint meeting held earlier this month was a good start, but that more regular meetings needed to be held.
Snead-Johnson then announced that the school board would meet Thursday evening at 6 p.m. to give the proposed balanced budget a final approval to meet the deadline of having it done prior to the end of this month.
The 2019-20 fiscal year begins on July 1.
Agenda items that were discussed and approved Monday under new business included:
— A?trip by the Covington High School varsity girls basketball team to Orlando, Fla., from Dec. 18-22, 2019. (Clemons requested that fundraising reports be provided to the school board.)
Following the meeting, the school board met in closed session to discuss personnel appointments and resignations.
