Local schools may cut 28 jobs

A total of 28 people will lose their jobs if the Alleghany County Schools budget passes as it was presented to the Alleghany County Board of Education on June 9.

Overall, 10 teachers and 16 teacher assistants, one central office staffer and one non-instructional employee will lose their jobs as a result of the state of the economy and the reducing budgets for education in the state, House and Senate. In terms of personnel funding, the school system is bracing for a loss of $1,019,531.

Superintendent Jeff Cox said the non-instructional support position would be a clerical or custodial employee and, per state instruction, assistant principals will lose a month of employment to make up a total of three months cut for Alleghany County Schools.

Breaking down the personnel funding losses, $125,000 accounts for an anticipated local budget cut, which equates to six teacher assistants or three teachers. A total of $206,000 is an anticipated shortfall in state small counties funding, which equates to the loss of four teacher assistants and 2.5 teachers. A total of $126,000 is an anticipated cut in state teacher assistant funding, which equates to six teacher assistants. A total of $91,000 is an anticipated shortfall in exceptional children funding, which equates to one teacher and two teacher assistants. In addition, a $45,000 anticipated state cut in central office funding equates to the loss of one director position; a $21,000 anticipated state cut in non-instruction support positions equates to the loss of a custodial position; a $21,531 anticipated state cut in assistant principal support equates to three months of assistant principal support; and $475,000 anticipated state position cuts equates to the loss of 9.5 teachers based on 6.5 teachers for adding two students per class to allotment formulas, two teachers for decrease in student enrollment and one career and technical education teacher.

Cox explained, "The governor had suggested a reduction of about 3.61 percent down to about $7.9 billion for education. The Senate had suggested a 7.47 percent reduction down to $7.6 billion and the House Education Subcommittee is now recommending a 16.11 percent reduction to the education budget, which is a net decrease of $1.2 billion across the state. There are just now beginning to be some conversations held publically down in the Legislature about paring some kind of revenue package with this budget. So far, they've just been cutting, cutting, cutting their way down to what the revenue projections are. Just in the last couple days, they've started talking about some kind of tax package, maybe a quarter-of-a-cent sales tax, some kind of an income tax adjustment for folks making more than $200,000 a year, a ‘sin' tax on some of the tobacco and alcohol. The whole package that they were talking about as of last night at least would total about $500 million, so it would offset about half of the reductions we're looking at in the education budget if that is where the new revenue were directed."