Daily Independent (Ashland, KY)

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July 25, 2012

Cuts, possible tax hike needed for Boyd schools

Board of Education members face tough decisions to balance budget

Mike James The Independent

SUMMIT — Boyd County school board members will have to make some tough choices if they want to balance their budget, the district’s finance director said Monday.

It needs to cut close to $900,000 and raise property taxes, said Don Fleu, who presented the board a list of potential cuts.

Fleu recommended raising the property tax 4 percent, the maximum increase a school board is allowed to take without putting it to a vote.

That would bring in an additional $215,000.

The list of 19 cuts he recommended ranged from reducing the maintenance budget by $100,000 to small expenses such as fax machine service to board members’ homes, which costs $1,000 annually.

It also included using capital outlay money for maintenance expenses, a step that would require state approval and would shift $420,000 to the general fund.

Other big-ticket items on the list included reducing electricity usage ($70,000), not filling two central office positions ($74,000), reducing public relations spending ($20,000), restricting professional development travel to two people per school ($10,000), and board members skipping their national conference ($10,000).

Smaller cuts, saving a few thousand dollars each, would include ending the Spotlighting Families event, eliminating food at district meetings, ending radio sponsorships and suspending faculty out-of-district travel.

Adopting all those cuts and others could pare away enough expense to bring the district’s balance up to where Fleu had projected it early this year.

Because of state cuts and lower than expected local revenue collection, the district ended the year with less money than projected, for the first time since at least 1993, when Fleu took his job, he said.

Also for the first time since at least 1993, the district spent some of its contingency fund, he said. “We are going to have to make some major adjustments to balance,” he said.

The district took in a bit more in property taxes than projected but less in utilities tax and other taxes. It earned less on its invested money. Total local revenue was about 3 percent less than projected and total state revenue close to 1 percent less.

Making the cuts would be inconvenient but not overly painful, Fleu said. The list, developed by district administrators and school principals, represents shared sacrifice but does not impact classroom teaching, he said.

Cutting teachers is not on the table now but it could be next year if things get worse, Superintendent  Howard K. Osborne said. So far Boyd has managed to avoid layoffs, while some other districts in Kentucky have not.

The board won’t have to decide on tax rates until August, but board chair Bob Greene said he would be reluctant to raise the rate. “I’d hate to put another tax on people. I’d have to give it a lot of thought,” he said.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.

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