Franklin County School District has some tough choices

            The Franklin County School board is going to have to make some very difficult budgetary decisions before the next school year.

The school district is looking at a having 2.6 million dollars less next year than it does this year, and that will require some potentially drastic changes in the district.

There are a number of reasons the school district is losing money but it can be boiled down to lower property values bringing in less local tax dollars as well as cuts in both federal and state spending for schools.

As an example, the taxable value of local property has fallen from over 4 billion dollars in 2008 to less than 2 billion dollars this year.

That alone has cut revenue for the school district from a high of nearly 10 million dollars in 2009 to about 7 million dollars this year.

Federal funding for salaries and benefits has fallen from a high of over 1.2 million dollars in 2010 to less than 600 thousand dollars this year.

The school board now has a list of options to consider to start addressing the expected deficit.

Those options range from not paying bus drivers for athletic trips which would save about 5000 dollars a year to moving to a 4 day school week which would save the district about 350 thousand dollars a year.

Also on the list is a possible 7 percent pay cut for all workers which would shave about 627 thousand dollars off the budget next year.

At this point the school board is in the very early stages of considering its options – and some board members feel there might be ways that haven’t yet been brought up that could cut the budget without having to impact teacher salaries too much.

The board won’t even know exactly how much it has to cut until the legislature finishes its budget process in early May.

The board says it is not going to stand still while the state works on its budget.

They plan to hold a public workshop on the budget next week where they hope to get more ideas on how best to make up the deficit.

The workshop will be held next Wednesday afternoon at 5:30.

It will be held at the Franklin County School Cafeteria.

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