As the Cherokee County School Board started off a new year, it examined budget planning material for the coming school year, which indicates a projected $17.7 million shortfall between expected revenues and expenditures.
At the Jan. 19 school board meeting, School Board Attorney Tom Roach conducted a secret ballot election in which the school board chose its own chairman and vice chairman.
Post 2 School Board Member Mike Chapman was elected chairman, replacing Post 5 School Board Member Rick Steiner. Post 4 School Board Member Janet Read replaced Post 7 School Board Member Kim Cochran as vice chairman.
Steiner said he was appreciative of the insight he gained while serving as chairman.
He implored the Cherokee Legislative Delegation to follow the suggestion submitted by the school board when it introduces legislation in the next few weeks for the Census-required redistricting of the Board of Education for the November 2012 elections. A restructuring of the board make-up is not required.
“If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” Steiner said, regarding possible proposals by legislators to change the structure of the school board.
At the work session table preceding the school board meeting, board members pored over predictions for the district’s finances. The figures are based on current growth rates in student population, with no further cuts in state and local funding.
In fiscal year 2012-2013, the school district will lose all federal funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). It also expects to lose around $1 million in Title II funding due to a possible across-the board federal tax cut.
State revenues were up in 2011 compared to 2010; however, the state budget for the coming year in regard to education has not been set.
“Required local effort will likely remain at the $38.9 million level for 2012-2013, even though this amount continues to clearly exceed statutory parameters for collection of this so-called ‘local fair share,’” school district Superintendent Dr. Frank Petruzielo said, regarding the state’s equalization formula, whereby Cherokee (a donor county) contributes 5 mills of local property tax revenue to help support public school systems in the state’s poorer counties.
Petruzielo said if county property values continue to decline, additional cuts will be necessary to balance the coming budget.
Those cuts could include employee layoffs; additional employee furlough days without pay beyond the current four days; a further increase in class size; further reductions in level of service to students, parents and schools; and a third consecutive year of not being able to purchase new or replacement school books and textbooks.
Petruzielo said the board may have to consider a local property tax increase of .55 mills, which would take county school board millage to the 20-mill state cap for boards of education.
He said school district reserve funds have to be repaid, as they are reaching dangerous lows.
Additionally, the superintendent said, the school district recently received from the state a more accurate calculation of increases in employer matching benefits for health insurance that exceed previous estimates by more than $1 million.
“This has been a problem in the business world for a decade,” Chapman said. “It’s just catching up to the school districts.”
On the bright side, with the educational Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) renewed for another five years by voters, capital projects, most notably construction of three new middle schools over the next five years, can continue. SPLOST funds, by law, cannot be used in Cherokee to balance the operational budget.
School district work on the coming budget year will continue into the summer, with a final budget being approved by the school board around the beginning of the next school year in August.
