By Sarah Campbell
scampbell@salisburypost.com
EAST SPENCER — The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to dip into their fund balance for $375,000 to balance the budget.
The move comes after the Rowan County Board of Commissioners’ decision last week to reinstate funding for classroom supplies.
The system has been using the allocation toward general operating expenses , a move OKed by commissioners to save teaching positions.
Commissioners voted to reinstate the $375,000 for supplies when passing the county budget in June. But Chairman Chad Mitchell said they would consider transferring it again if the state passed cuts like those in a Senate budget proposal, rather than a more favorable one by the House of Representatives.
The final education budget was a compromise between the two.
Superintendent Dr. Judy Grissom called the timing of the decision terrible.
“If we had known this when we did our original budget we could have looked for more cuts,” she said. “It was our understanding that unless the House budget was passed we could use the money for teaching positions.”
The district’s is using the $375,000 to fund eight teaching positions.
Grissom laid out the options for finding the money to balance the budget, including cutting the eight teaching positions, reducing the one time 1 percent bonus approved by the board last month to 3/4 percent or tapping the fund balance.
School board member Dr. Richard Miller said none of the options were to good.
“I think it’s better keeping people employed than adding to the unemployment lines,” he said. “I think we take it from the fund balance and take our licks.”
The school system had already allocated about $2.4 million of it’s $5.5 million fund balance to account for a deficit and provide employees with the 1 percent pay hike.
The decision to take an additional $375,000 will leave the school system with less than $3 million in reserves.
“The ultimate goal of the county commissioners is that we not have a fund balance,” board chairman Dr. Jim Emerson said.
Miller said he was initially put off by the commissioners decision, but has since changed his mind.
“I thought it was an additional case of the county commissioners overstepping and trying to do the school board’s job,” he said. “But they initially gave us this money for this specific purpose, then gave us the authority to use it for something else so I can’t get on my political high horse.”
Board member Mike Caskey said the move was not vicious.
“They talked to a lot of teachers who said they would like the money back, I think they were trying to do something good,” he said. “I don’t think it was something nefarious on their part, I think it was a miscommunication.”
School board member Kay Wright Norman said she “won’t apologize for commissioners.”
The board approved the school system’s nearly $184.8 million budget resolution Monday.
Board members voted to nix 40 positions to fill a $1.1 million deficit during a special meeting at the end of July.
Fourteen curriculum coaches, 20 reading assistants, four lead teachers and two high school clerical workers have been re-assigned to vacant positions within the district.
During Monday’s meeting the board also:
• Approved a field trip request by Rowan County Early College Principal Cindy Misenheimer to take 60 freshman on a three-day trip to Washington, DC;
• Approved a low bid by Radco Construction of Mount Holly to replace the roof at Bostian Elementary School for $83,415. Gene Miller, assistant superintendent of operations, said the company will remove the current shingles and replace the entire roof. The project will began shortly and take about 60 days. Miller said the majority of the work will be done after school.
Contact reporter Sarah Campbell at 704-797-7683.
Twitter: twitter.com/posteducation
Facebook: facebook.com/Sarah.SalisburyPost