Proposed budget of $88,299.968
By JOSH RESNEK
The proposed fiscal year 2021 school budget is a finely nuanced compendium of carefully calibrated decreases and increases totaling $88.2 million in expenditures as opposed to last year’s $87.8 million.
That is a -1.73% reduction in spending from last year or $1.5 million.
The four major decreased line items in the budget are: the elimination of student handbooks, a $50,000 savings; Special Education Tuition down $1.7 million to $5.3 million; Gateway to College Program down $75,000 at $100,000; and Maintenance and Custodial General Expenses, which are down $497,000 to $2.3 million.
Two major increases in spending are projected for Special Education Personnel expenditures expected to come in at $13.6 million, up by $1.7 million and Instructional General Expenses $1.6 million, up by $239,000.
Special Education Transportation comes in at $4.2 million, down $300,000 from 2020.
Central Administration Personnel expenses are expected to be $2.4 million.
No raises are to be made in salaries for Central Administration Personnel.
The largest single item in the budget – teachers’ salaries, is up almost $2 million from 2020 to a total of $42.8 million.
Teachers’ salaries are included in the Instructional Personnel Services (IPS) section of the 2021 budget.
All line items included, the IPS is set for $48.1 million in 2021, down about $3 million from 2020.
Administrators total salaries have fallen by about $1.4 million. And the cost of additional teachers, set at $.1 million in 2020, will be $0 in 2021.
Special Education Personnel costs will rise about $1.5 million to a total of $13.6 million.
Missing from the 2021 budget schedule are anticipated added emergency expenses caused by new state mandates to meet the challenge of the Coronavirus.
Also, it remains unknown exactly what the state will be sending along in added revenues, if anything at all, for school departments across the state.
Again, it remains unknown what the federal government will be sending along, as well.
The Stimulus impasse in Washington has put such funding at a standstill for now.