Board calls meeting over school budget

The Alleghany County Board of Education will consider a budget proposal this week which asks for about 13 percent more than the county allotted the school budget last year.

The board has a special called meeting scheduled for 8:30 a.m. tomorrow — Friday, March 22 — to discuss the 2002-03 budget as well as Barbara Halsey's pending lawsuit against the board.

Finance Officer Karen Leys said the finance committee will propose $1,641,207 in the local fund budget for current expenses and $514,099 for capital outlay funds.

School officials said they wanted to accomplish the budget process earlier than last year, and Friday"s meeting is about a month earlier than the board approved its budget request last year.

At that time, the board approved a budget asking for $1,579,105 from the Alleghany County Board of Commissioners for current expenses. The county ended up allocating $1,453,595 for the 2001-02 school budget.

The finance committee's proposal thus represents 12.91 percent more than the county allocated last year for current expenses, and 12.28 percent more than the $457,856 it allocated for capital outlays.

Capital outlays include construction and equipment purchases, while current expenses represent ongoing items such as personnel.

Leys said, "The capital outlay budget is not county property tax money but is sales tax money." She explained that the county is required to allocate a portion of sales tax revenue to the schools.

Superintendent Duane Davis said budgetary work began last December, with various committees representing all four schools preparing their proposals and requests. The finance committee began meeting about a month ago to deliberate the budget.

Davis said that with the current state budget crunch, the committee was especially vigilant about keeping next year's budget tight. In the past, the committee asked for anything it thought was needed, he said. This year, "We attempted to keep the budget request down to the absolute essentials."

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