View SourceGATE CITY — Virginia’s funding shortage was readily apparent Wednesday as the Scott County Board of Supervisors passed a classes technique spending budget that reflected millions of dollars in express cuts to the coming year.
The $32 million price range adopted by the board with the 2010-2011 fiscal 12 months was $4.45 million less than the one it approved for the existing fiscal 12 months, which ends June 30.
The Scott County College Board unanimously approved the finances at its normal meeting Tuesday night.
The university system’s shortfall comes in spite of a $1.6 million supplement of federal stimulus cash it will have access to next 12 months.
The price range includes $24.a couple of million in state resources, $4.8 million in county funds, and $3.two million in federal funds.
The majority of the reductions discovered in the spending budget — a total of $4.1 million — resulted from talk about funding cuts.
The last time Scott County Colleges received this quantity of funding was to the 2006-2007 fiscal 12 months.
Due to the fact of talk about funding mandates, the county’s match could have been about $350,000 much less than the approved amount, but the board decided against that after learning a number of much more teaching positions would need to be eliminated if the dollars was taken away.
“We have tried to make education a priority, and we think it’s crucial to maintain the colleges and also the education the kids receive as high good quality as feasible, and it demands dollars to do that,” Board of Supervisors Chairman David Redwine explained. “We personally asked (Scott County Colleges) ... to cut out all the fat they could, and they say they have.
“They’ve cut their staff as much as achievable and moved men and women around, and we hope by keeping this funding level they’ll operate as efficiently as they can as a university method and still supply top quality education.”
The Board of Supervisors approved the spending plan which has a unanimous vote on a motion by Paul Fields. Supervisor Chad Hood, also a institution technique employee, abstained from the vote, whilst Supervisor Joe Herron was not present at the meeting.
The largest spending cut inside spending plan was for instruction, which was reduced by over $3 million and mostly realized through staff cuts. Transportation spending also took a huge hit with a reduction of more than $615,000.
Superintendent Jim Scott said he appreciated the board’s action around the spending plan since it'll permit the process to send out teacher contracts as soon as achievable.
“Now that they’ve given us approval around the spending budget, we can go ahead and send out contracts,” Scott stated. “That way the teachers aren’t sitting available, not knowing regardless of whether they have a work or not, simply because all 80 (non-tenured teachers) don’t know which ones do or do not have a work. So that’s going to relieve a great deal of anxiety there, which is usually a positive.”
In related company, the board approved a $4 million line of credit at the request on the school method.
The institution program will be in a position to access the line of credit history beginning July 1. It will remain open until April 30, 2011.
Scott mentioned the credit score line would serve a dual purpose by helping the university process mitigate delays in point out funding and allowing the county to keep a big portion from the resources it gives to the classes technique until taxes are collected in November.
“Where it helps the county, if we hadn’t got this, we would have had to ask the county to give us the biggest part of their cash proper off the bat in July and August,” Scott explained. “That’s prior to they’re in a position to collect their tax cash, so it puts them in a real bad strain.”
In April, the college program closed out a $4 million line of credit history which has a a couple of.1 percent interest rate it had obtained to the existing fiscal year. Only $2.1 million of that volume was drawn down.