A short-staffed Starkville school board learned Tuesday night that their 2010-2011 budget will be about 10 percent to 12 percent less than it was a year ago, a reduction of almost $2 million.
They set a public hearing on the budget for 6 p.m. May 18. Details of the budget will be made available then, but Superintendent Judy Couey told the board that she has been given the district”s budget information from the state. This cut is taken from the already-reduced funding the district received in July 2009.
“We”re short,” Couey said when asked what the bottom line is for the district. “And we could potentially get more cuts.”
Couey said in years past, the Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding was a sum to which was added such things as special education, alternative education, gifted, talented and transportation fund. That changed this year.
“Now in the current MAEP, these have all been lumped together and we have to make do,” Couey said.
Board member Eddie Myles was absent from the meeting, as he was recovering from a serious health threat in the hospital. The board enters its second month short a fifth member as they wait on the Starkville Board of Aldermen to appoint one.
In the business meeting, the board handled several personnel items, including accepting resignations and retirements and hiring replacements. They approved the salary scales for many employees, including teachers, paraprofessionals, Success For All teachers and tutors, substitutes, bus drivers and hourly employees. Information on these items can be found online at www.starkville.k12.ms.us.
The board also amended several policies. Among these, they now require students, teachers, staff, administrators, volunteers and visitors to wear ID badges in grades 6-12, and they modified the promotion and retention policy to eliminate social promotion.
Most other items were of fairly routine business, and the board went into closed session to handle student disciplinary matters. They will meet again for the public hearing on the budget May 18, and then June 8 for their regular board meeting.
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