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A Brighter budget for Santa Rosa County Schools?
The tentative budget for the upcoming 2010-11 year for Santa Rosa County schools looked promising for board members as they saw an increase in budget, along with an increase in staff at Thursday morning’s school board meeting.
School board members went over the good news with the school budgeting staff at the school board meeting, which was recently made available to the public on the school boards website.
Even with good news coming from the state, Santa Rosa County continues to be the lowest funded school per student in the State of Florida.
Santa Rosa County was funded $6,397 per student by the state. The state average is $6,840 per student.
This news ranked Santa Rosa County the 67th district out of 67 in the state for per student funding for the second year in a row.
“We have been working on trying to get more money from the state,” said Superintendent Tim Wyrosdick. “We are the last district on this list.”
Part of the reason for that rank in the state is due to the cost of living in Santa Rosa County according to Susan McCole who presented the budget to board members Thursday.
“The state looks at housing, cost of living, and compares that with the rest of the state,” McCole said. “We are the cheapest county to live in compared with the rest of the state.”
As of now, there are several items that have not been budgeted for the school year. Health insurance for example was one of the items that were not budgeted because the policies do not renew until January 2011.
Because of several cut backs including electricity and in and out-of-county travel, the school system was able to finish the 2009-10 school year under budget.
“We have staff that turn the lights off after they use the bathroom or don’t turn the lights on at all; they use the light coming from the windows” McCole said.
The in and out-of-county travel budget increased, but only elevated because the schools were able to cut back last year.
“We do not plan on spending that much on travel,” Wyrosdick said.
The over $100,000 extra budgeted for travel was rollover money that was essentially saved from last year. Wyrosdick said the school district would continue to cut back on travel, and that most of the money used for travel comes out of grants allocated for the school system.
The school system will also be receiving a check from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for $2,501,897 for damages obtained from hurricanes during the 2005 school year.
The school system is also receiving over $15 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, which are federal stimulus dollars given to the county from the government.
A large $7.5 million lump of those funds took the place of state funds for the operating budget for the upcoming year. This will in turn make the operating budget look smaller for the 2010-11 school year.
The instructional staff for Santa Rosa County according to McCole will be increasing for the 2010-11 school year based on class sizes and the State of Florida’s Class Size Amendment.
The amendment, which was passed in 2002 and placed in the Florida Constitution states sets limits on the number of students that can be placed in core classes.
For the 2010-11 school year that limit was set at 18 students per class in pre-kindergarten through third grade, a maximum of 22 students in classes from fourth through eight grade and 25 students max per class in grades nine through 12.
A public hearing on the proposed budget will be held next Thursday, July 29 at 6:30 p.m. inside the school district meeting room.
