Somerset —  

The Pulaski County School Board passed a working budget on Friday for the 2010-11 school year, one which shows a more positive outlook than originally anticipated.

Revenue for the school dis-trict’s general fund totals $43,356,950. That’s a smaller amount than Pulaski enjoyed in the current school year’s budget by close to $200,000, giving the school system less money with which to operate.

However, it looks as if there will be enough money available to create a healthy contingency fund. The state requires such a fund of at least 2 percent of total expenses to help cover the district’s costs in the event of an emergency expenditure. In April of 2009, the school district was placed on a “watch list” because it ended the previous fiscal year under that 2 percent threshold, causing some degree of controversy in school board meetings.

That won’t be the case this time, according to the projections by Pulaski’s finan-cial officers Rebecca Wright and Barry Cooke. The working budget they came up with, in order to meet the state’s May 30 deadline, allows for a contin-gency fund of $1,444,589, or 2.27 percent. 

“(Cooke) estimated a 1.7 percent contingency at first,” said Eaton. This was based on following trending tax reven-ues, which have suffered over the last couple of years. However, Cooke crunched the numbers again Thursday and was able project several thous-and dollars more than a few weeks ago. It could even end up at 2.289 percent by the end of the year, noted Eaton.

Pulaski County is facing the same budget woes as schools all over the state, and that means belt-tightening is in store. Having less money with which to offer the same services to students and parents means there are “holes to be plugged.”

One source of optimism, however, is that the Pulaski budget allows for the likelihood that state legislators will come to a budget agreement of their own, thus eliminating the need for the massive staff non-renewal list that the school district presented earlier in the month. The majority of those teachers and personnel are expected to be able to retain their jobs despite being on the list, which was a sort of “worst case scenario” plan should Frankfort leave public schools high and dry without a spending plan.

“This is the best-estimated working budget that’s due today; we didn’t tackle it at the last board meeting because of the unknowns,” said Eaton. “The (state) budget is pretty much decided. We pretty well know where we are.”

Steve Butcher, due to take over as superintendent when Eaton’s retirement becomes official at the end of June, said that the school system will begin rescinding many of the non-renewals as soon as it gets the go-ahead information from the state. 

“As soon as we know what we need to do (and) get the actual signature of the governor, we’ll do what we need to do,” said Butcher. “I’m assuming that will be sometime next week.”

He added, “We just had to (list a large number of non-renewals) as a safety measure, because what you don’t know, you can’t fund.”

That’s good news for newer teachers who were sweating out their futures, but not everyone’s out of the woods yet. 

“We have tightened the belt and continue to,” said Eaton. “We’re looking at ways to cut costs and gain revenue, even when state revenues are down.”

That will mean taking a closer look at some areas that might get otherwise get overlooked, seeing where money could possibly be saved. That includes travel costs, custodial supply budgets, programming — ”We’re asking principals to be frugal (when it comes to programs),” said Eaton — and restructuring of preschool.

“It’s continuing to look at places we haven’t visited yet for savings,” he said.

Specifically regarding preschool, the Memorial Education Center hosts 3- and 4-year-olds Oak Hill, Pulaski, and Southern Elementary and offers a full-day preschool program, even though it’s only funded for a half-day’s worth curriculum. Eaton said the district is considering changes to the set-up, including offering a half-day of instruction and a half-day of “extended learning opportunities” with individuals other than a teacher. No decisions have been made yet about any such changes.

“When we started (Memorial), we supplemented it by $200,000 10 years ago; today, it’s $749,000,” said Eaton. “It’s getting to where it’s got to be tweaked.” 

Special education is another area where expenses are skyrocketing. The district will look at ways to cut those costs where possible, but is also hoping for anywhere from $150,000-200,000 provided by Medicaid to help with medical expenses for special needs students. The school district was recently licensed for the federal Medicaid money.

“Mr. Butcher will be working with principals around throughout the summer, and saying, ‘Look, we want you to study your numbers real close before we automatically give you back the staff you had last year,’” said Eaton. “People come and go. There are going to be some staff placements studied very closely this summer.”  

Capital outlay money will help the budget situation. For the first time, the school district is allowed to use leftover restricted building funds utilized for debt service to supplement the general fund. There may be as much as $412,000 out of $725,980 in the capital outlay fund that can relieve expenditure woes.

Overall, the financial picture of Pulaski County Schools is decent enough, if not completely rosy, heading into the Butcher era. 

“We’re going to be fine,” said Butcher. “We’ve just got to watch what we’re doing.”