Latest state cuts mean $462,000 deficit for county schools

Gov. Sonny Perdue’s July funding cuts — to Quality Based Education (QBE) and equalization — now have Madison County schools facing a $462,551 deficit in an already thin budget year.

But county school leaders, who’ve already shed over $2 million from this year’s budget, can’t tackle this deficit until they crunch a few essential numbers.

“There’s two big unknown factors,” Madison County Superintendent Mitch McGhee said.

First, the school system must determine how much reserve remains from last school year. It should have that figure by September. Then, it awaits the county tax digest, which could drop five percent.

“Until we find out about what the local tax digest is going to be, we don’t know how much money we’re going to have to deal with,” McGhee told the school board during its meeting last week. “This deficit could be more. It could be less.”

A third factor is the likelihood of more teacher furloughs in the second semester, which would mean $171,000 in savings. Madison County teachers have been furloughed three days this semester.

“We’ve been told that’s a done deal, that three more days are coming,” McGhee said.

For now, school leaders wait and hope for the best case scenario —a few thousand more dollars in reserves due than expected and the county digest not dipping as much as anticipated. Paired with the all-but-certain furloughs next semester, that combination could reduce the deficit to below $100,000.

“That’s something that our fund balance could handle pretty easily,” McGhee said.

As for more dire scenarios, McGhee didn’t want to speculate but said layoffs are a last resort this year. That could change next year, however, should the funding situation continue to worsen.

“May we have to look at that as we plan for next year? That’s a possibility,” McGhee said. “But we’ll spend our reserve all the way down if we have to at this point in time before we look at laying off folks right now.”

McGhee stressed that he doesn’t want to worry people unnecessarily.

“We still have students to educate,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do around here and that’s where we need to be concentrating our efforts … I don’t want to start throwing things our there that may not come to pass.”

The state’s cuts in the middle of the year continue to frustrate school leaders who base budgets according to what state says tells them they’re slated to receive.

“You’re into your financial year, you’re counting on that money and they come and cut that money away from you,” McGhee said.

Even if Madison County weathers this deficit, the financial outlook remains ominous. The governor could always opt for more cuts after the new year, which McGhee said is a possibility.

“We can make all the plans we want for the money we’ve got now, and then we may have something else that we have to address,” he said.

Overall, these cuts add up for a Madison County School System already operating with a “very lean” spending plan, McGhee said.

“There may be some that want to debate the topic out there, but Madison County is very lean compared to other school systems our size,” McGhee said.