| 115th Year, 48th Issue | Thursday, July 8, 2004 | Sparta, North Carolina |
The Alleghany Board of Education passed an interim budget for fiscal year 2004-2005 on June 30. That budget passage allows the board to continue to operate schools funded at current levels until a complete budget can be passed.
"When the state budget is passed and we can come to a conclusion for all funds," said Alleghany County Schools Finance Director Karen Leys. "We can't really project what we need to do for the total picture until we get our state budget," Leys said. "We won't know for the next two or three weeks at the best about our state budget."
During the meeting, budget amendment for each fund in the 2002-2003 was passed during the meeting to change previous estimates to reflect actual numbers.
Despite not moving forward on a current expense budget, the board adopted a $447,725 capital outlay budget for the coming fiscal year. This amount derives from the commissioner's $436,461 proposal and a $11,264 carryover from unused money from the previous year.
Leys noted in an interim budget resolution that the final budget for the 2004-2005 fiscal year will not be able to be adopted until after July 1.
"We will expend monies that are only ordinary expenses and then when we get our state budget and we have the knowledge of how to adopt our budget, then we do it at that time."
Following the joint meeting between the board of education and board of commissioners on June 4, the Alleghany County Schools Finance Committee met close to 10 times to adapt the budget to the amount allocated by the board of commissioners. Changes made by the finance committee decreased the proposed budget by $68,893.
"This morning, Mr. Davis, Ms. Linker, Donald Reeves, myself and Kim Elliott on speaker phone...We have come together and are proposing these changes Now, we know what the county commissioners have funded for capital outlay and we have to come to that figure on our total." In the proposal to the commissioners, the board of education had asked for new bus garage equipment, swim team timing equipment for the high school and a maintenance van. These items, totaling $12,600, were subtracted from the interim budget. Other deductions included $26,693 from air conditioning, leaving $26,007 in the budget; $2,500 from guttering and or porch overhangs at Sparta Elementary, leaving $5,000 in the budget; $6,000 from computers, leaving $15,000 and $11,100 from balanced literacy books, leaving $26,300.
Cutting the air conditioning renovation budget almost in half was cause
for concern for the board.
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