Board of Education agrees on interim budget with cuts

The Alleghany County Board of Education passed an interim budget for the school system on a 3-0 vote on June 27.

Present for the vote were Chair Charles Joines and school board members Gary Murphy and Sonia Joines. Not present for the 11:30 a.m. meeting were vice chair David Caldwell and board member Steve Carpenter.

The budget, which may change as the school system learns more about what the state budget will hold as far as funding for local schools, puts four teaching positions on hold. Also on hold are four assistant teaching positions. Those jobs may be cut if no additional funding is sent down from the state, administrators explained.

"We're going through interviews for these positions," said Superintendent Duane Davis. "These are all going to be frozen until we know more about what our final budget is going to look like."

The board also agreed to a finance committee recommendation to cut out a proposed 3 percent raise for school system employees. Eliminating the raise helped the system save $23,419 from its general fund.

Total cuts from the general fund budget totalled $187,612, some of which included extra funding or savings that were garnered by the system, which helped make up the deficit along with the actual budget trimming.

Also under the capital outlay budget, the system had to shuffle money from several projects to cover about an $85,000 expenditure for the new gymatorium floor. Among the projects put on hold to help cover that cost were paving at Sparta Elementary School ($35,000).

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