Technology grant, governor’s budget may benefit CC schools’ funding

The first of two public hearings for Charles City’s School Board regarding the FY2016-17 recommended budget and Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) took place Tuesday night. And while no one in attendance spoke, a recommendation to implement a grant into this year’s budget may save future money according to the presentation.

School board director of finance Sue Salg proposed to school board members the amending of this fiscal year’s budget to add a technology grant for funds discovered. According to Salg, a local match around $20,000 is required, but the grant will provide the schools $128,000 to use towards the technology portion of the CIP. In turn, the financial director added the implementation will reduce the overall price tag of the school’s CIP by $66,000 over a five-year span.

At January’s regular school board meeting, director of operations Jerome Tyler presented a CIP recommendation of $1.08 million to school board members. At that meeting, he indicated through communication with Salg and superintendent of schools David Gaston, some projects were recommended to be moved up on the list in order to save money in future years. Under Salg’s recent proposal, the schools may only need to request a mere $4,000 for the CIP in FY2017-18.

CIP projects scheduled for the upcoming year include continuing the One-to-One Technology Initiative ($120,00), renovating the Blue Wing of Charles City Elementary School ($119,981), renovations to the commons area at both the elementary ($78,869) and high school ($252,340), and parking lot repairs due to drainage issues ($90,000). New items appearing on the document to help address operating needs at school facilities include replacing HVAC units in the elementary school’s cafeteria and kitchen ($29,840), heat pump water sources at 18 units in the schools ($33,488), providing teachers with instructional laptops, and substituting the replacing of one bus with a driver’s education car and seven-person passenger van.

In regards to the budget, Salg commented that Governor Terry McAuliffe’s released budget for school state funds come in with a figure of $3,939,955. She commented that that number is $260,025 less than what the school system received last year, but is a lot better than an earlier projected loss of $410,000.

“The composite index had a lot to do with our loss,” the finance director said. “If it wasn’t for that, I don’t think we’d be losing any other funds.”

Gaston’s original budget of $10.6 million was introduced at December’s regular school board meeting. There, Gaston’s top goals were to increase pay scales and restore the Teacher Assistant Program to provide assistance to teachers taking college courses. Numbers in December targeted a 4.3 percent, or $435,000 in new funding and also $345,000 to compensate from an early prediction of funds loss to the state. Now, that request is $384,327, or 3.8 percent with the changes and an overall total of $450,703 being asked for by the schools. Those figures may change according to Gaston, who said proposed budgets from the state Senate and House of Delegates are expected to be released later on in the month.

School board members took no action after the public hearing as they are scheduled to have a second one on Feb. 16 at 6:30 p.m. prior to their regularly scheduled meeting at 7:30 p.m.