BOE approves tentative $38.7 million budget

The final budget vote is slated for June 29 at a called meeting at 6:30 p.m. A 6 p.m. public hearing will precede the budget vote. The Madison County Board of Education (BOE) has no plans to layoff teachers or increase the school tax rate this year.

The tentative budget for 2010-2011 is slightly up from the $38.6 million figure the BOE proposed at its work session a few weeks ago. The spending plan, however, is still 1.3 percent less than last year’s $39.2 million budget.

Though some budget areas did decrease after the work session, Superintendent Mitch McGhee said most of the changes are increases.

Additional tentative expenditure figures include the hiring of two additional teachers and a paraprofessional due to increased enrollment and maximum class size requirements.

The system will have to apply $791,299 of its reserves to fund next year’s budget, but that’s still less than the $1 million hit school leaders originally feared.

Board chairman Jim Patton commented that the system can’t afford to deplete its reserves for many more years. Superintendent McGhee agreed.

“No, we can’t,” he said. “We’ve got one more year that we can hit it good and that’s it.”

The system hopes to one day start rebuilding its reserves.

“When we’re not cutting, we going to have to start budgeting in fund balance increases. ... The state’s going to have to stop cutting our funding for that to happen,” McGhee said.

In other business, the BOE proposed a five-day amended calendar for 2010-2011. The system had originally approved a six-day amended calendar, but the five-day set up allows teachers to have all their post planning days.