Following a lengthy discussion Thursday evening, Loudon County
Board of Education chose to trim deficit spending for the
current budget year from $2.1 million to $1.6 million.
The board opted to keep 2 percent raises for
teachers but remove four new science, technology, engineering
and mathematics positions.
Director of Schools Jason Vance gave
members a list of items he wished to rework in this year’s
budget that would cut $421,503, one of which was
$24,177 for “various salary adjustments to meet scale.”
“I think there was just a lot going on,”
Jeremy Buckles, board member, said. “That’s why I’m happy
we’ve at least got something to work with now. I think that
takes care of some of the big items we needed to take care,
like getting our budget reflective
of how we’re operating with that salary, decreasing that
line item by (600)-something thousand dollars. That was a
big step.”
The original 2015-16 budget, which had been
approved by Loudon County Commission during the annual
budget process, reflected a 4 percent raise and included the
four STEM positions. The difference between reducing salary
increases to 2 percent and cutting the STEM positions is
$689,172, according to a document Vance provided at
Thursday’s workshop.
“We have officially trimmed that out, and
we basically -— the original budget we passed and county
commission passed allowed for us to take up to $2.1 million
out of our fund balance, make our budget work, and we cut
that further last night,” Buckles said. “We didn’t actually
cut a line item to make it work, but we ... as a
board we said instead of taking $2.1 out of fund balance
we’re at most going to take $1.6 million out of fund
balance.”
Vance said the savings would total a little
more than $600,000.
“I think in essence what they’re getting at
is those amendments will be tabled to discuss later or just
won’t be done at all,” he said. “... We know that some of
them need to be done because we’ve got auditors trying to
help us understand how they want us to move forward with our
business, and we’ve got a few amendments that are just
needful to be completed.
“But with that being said, I think it’s
important to consider the sources of revenue that we’ve got
available,” he added. “Do we want to take that from fund
balance or do we want to take it from Adequate Facilities
Tax or another place? We’ve not got too many options to
choose from, but it’ll just be in essence on how the board
responds I suppose.”
BOE Chairman Ric Best said he’s unsure what
additional cuts will be made following Thursday’s
action.
“We know for sure that we cut the
STEM positions,” Best said. “We know for sure that we’re
only giving teachers 2 percent instead of 4 (percent), but
there will have to be some other line item cuts, and
the director did make a comment last night relative to where
he thought those would be.”
Best said he was disappointed the board
likely wouldn’t address security at school entries as
quickly as was originally planned, which would cost
$130,000, according to the document given by Vance.
“Some of those will have to be cut
at $1.6 (million),” Best said. “We will not be able to do
some things that we had wanted to do with maintenance, with
security. That’s really where I’m disappointed, that we’ll
have to postpone some of our security issues where we’re
trying to make all of our door entry ways into our schools
more secure. But we will get that done. We’ll get that done,
it’s just we won’t perhaps to get to do it as quick a pace
we had originally wanted to.
“Again, though, usually the director will
make recommendations to us on what he would like to see
those cuts be determined and then — beyond what the
board’s already told me — and then the board will approve,
add to or delete from his recommended list,” he added.
The list Vance gave board members included
$56,279 for special education, $22,560 for a Tennessee Risk
Management insurance increase, $141,281 from an auditor’s
guidance about old subfund 142 money and $13,766 for Connect
Tennessee for Internet service.
“We’ve got the approval of the commission
to do either at this particular point, so we’re not under a
great pressure to have a timeline as to when we finally get
a resolution on it,” Gary Ubben, board member, said of what
to do with spending. “Salaries are set, so that’s the big
item at the beginning of the school year. That was at the 2
percent rate, so we don’t need to revisit that one. So it’s
just the other issues in the budget as to what we include
and what we elect to postpone or eliminate.”
During the meeting, Vance said if the
district spent all of the money allotted, the fund balance
would be down to about $3.4 million by the end of this
fiscal year. About $1 million is estimated to rollover into
this year’s budget. The dollar figure will be determined
after the audit report comes in.
“Another thing that we have to do is talk
to commission about us locking in getting growth money every
year,” Bobby Johnson Jr., board member, said. “This is the
first year we’ve got growth money in over five years. We
need to lock into that. That way if you get that growth
money we can live within our means. It can be done, but we
have to have that growth money moving forward and that’s not
unreasonable request to the mayor or county commission.
That’s very reasonable.”
Growth money received from the county comes
in at about $238,000, according to a document handed out at
a commission workshop in June.