Schools have budget knives poised

Georgia’s precipitous 6.6 percent drop in revenue collections from a year ago in July have prompted Gov. Sonny Perdue to direct state agencies to cut their budgets — and area schools are not immune.

“The state school board would prefer there would not be any cuts,” said Larry Winter, a certified public accountant in Dalton who serves on the State Board of Education, “but the cuts have been made by the governor and the Office of Management and Budget. Georgia does not allow deficit spending, so we must be within the budget.”

Winter said that Quality Basic Education funds — the package of items that make up the majority of state funds for educating children — were supposed to be off limits for the budget knife. But that was before the recent fall in state revenues.

QBE funding for the 2009 fiscal year is $8.8 billion, said Winter, with the rest of education funds totaling $300 million. For 2009 the governor has said he is for cutting $152 million, or 2 percent, which is what local school systems will have to cut.

July is the first month of fiscal year 2009. So local schools are bracing, and preparing, for the cuts.

Dalton Public Schools finance director Carol Shanahan said the system has already put a freeze on hiring for certified and non-certified personnel.

“I want to emphasize that we don’t want to do anything that will adversely affect classrooms,” she said. “We want to take some time and look at our programs. We’ll be more frugal, but this won’t be a knee-jerk reaction.

“We’ll use this year to do some soul-searching and focusing. It will be a year of planning, but we’re financially sound enough that we won’t have to take drastic action.”

Steve Loughridge, finance director for Murray County Schools, says their approach to the cut is “still developing — it’s a work in progress.” He had planned to give a financial report to the school board on Thursday before their work session was canceled.

“We still can’t get the exact information from the state we need,” he said. “They haven’t been forthcoming, but it’s still up to the legislature when they meet in January. I guess we should be thankful since other state agencies are being cut 6 to 10 percent.”

The Whitfield County school system is also taking a grim outlook toward the 2009 General Assembly session.

If the state Legislature decides to move forward with the projected 2 percent reduction in K-12 education spending, the resulting cut to Whitfield schools would be roughly $1.6 million to $1.8 million, said Kenny Sheppard, chief financial officer.

“We expect this state-mandated decrease in funding will be tacked on to the series of austerity reductions that have been handed down by the state since 2003,” Sheppard said. “Before this news came out, we were expecting a cut of about $821,000. If the legislature approves the proposed reduction, that cut will grow to about $2.5 million.”

Areas named by the state that will be affected by the 2 percent cut are the Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula, transportation and pre-school handicapped funding, he said. Collectively, the austerity reductions have cost Whitfield County Schools more than $14 million since 2003.

“Although these cuts are always painful, we have continually budgeted conservatively,” Sheppard said. “Since these cuts from the state began in 2003, we have opened three new schools, decreased our local property tax rate and increased our fund reserve balance.”

Winter concurred the cuts were ultimately up to the legislature.

“It’s all based on how we’re doing as a state,” Winter said, then explained, “if you took a family where one member was getting overtime at work and then that overtime was cut, you have to tighten the belt. We’re delighted that the governor limited the cuts to student education at 2 percent.”

Winter said that 40 percent of the state budget is devoted to kindergarten through 12th grade education, and that when pre-kindergarten, adult education and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia is factored in, total spending toward education in the state budget rises to 50 percent.

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