Starkville School Board members voted Tuesday night to approve the $54.4 million budget for the coming year in a meeting where they also cut 27 teacher assistants from the staff at Sudduth Elementary School.
All board members were present for the meeting. The budget the board approved had no changes from what was presented at the public hearing May 18. The budget is about $1.5 million less than the 2009-2010 budget, and Superintendent Judy Couey said there is no guarantee the state will not take back some of the funding it has promised the district.
The school district balanced the reduced budget by making cuts in operations, transportation and personnel. Administrators from principals and higher voluntarily took a five-day furlough this fiscal year, and the district has the option to furlough teachers for three days as a further budget-cutting option.
The district also significantly cut teacher assistant positions to make the budget work. There were 74 TAs for the 2009-2010 school year. Couey said Tuesday night that the principal made the recommendation on which assistants to cut and which to keep.
Elizabeth Mosley is the principal at Sudduth Elemetary School, and she recommended 27 people to cut in a letter to Couey dated May 10 but signed May 28. On May 28, the school board appointed her principal of Armstrong Middle School, effective July 1.
Despite the lean times, the Starkville School District expects to end this year and next with a fund balance of just over 7 percent, which is what the state considers ideal. The tax rate for the upcoming school year is 66 mills, up just slightly from the 65.52 mills levied last year. Total operational mills remain at 53.68, with the slight increase coming from bond indebtedness
The board unanimously approved the budget on Pickett Wilson's motion and Keith Coble's second.
In other business, the board had a first reading of a new school board policy on school bullying and reporting procedures for this infraction.
"The law says we must have a policy defining what bullying is and the procedures to report it," Couey said.
The district is considering adopting a new reporting form to document incidents of bullying and to spell out a timeline and procedure for dealign with the problem. Both matters should be handled at the next board meeting.
The board began the meeting by hearing from two parents with the local organization Go Play who are heading up volunteer efforts to design and build a discovery path for Henderson Ward Stewart Elementary School. The path will basically encircle the school and have seven educational nodes where students wills stop for educational activities.
The board heard at length about the project and how it is being planned to integrate physical activity with learning and meeting the state educational benchmarks for the grade levels at the school.
The board went into closed session to discuss pending litigation and personnel matters. They will meet again at 6 p.m. July 6.
