I voted my conscience. Time to move forward. By Alonzo Weston St. Joseph News-Press The St. Joseph Board of Education approved the next school years budget Monday evening. The board voted 6 to 1 to approve an operating budget of $124 million for 2014-2015. Dennis Snethen, Martin Rucker, Dan Colgan, Kappy Hodges, Lori Prussman and Brad Haggard voted to approve the budget. Board member Chris Danford was the lone no vote. Mrs. Danford read from a prepared statement explaining her no vote as essentially having doubts about the integrity of some portions of the budget numbers. She made it clear that the vote did not mean a lack of confidence in controller Kim Mulvaney, who prepared the budget in the absence of a chief financial officer. Beau Musser, the district’s chief financial officer, was placed on administrative leave in March. “Though I support the hiring of additional special education teachers and I support funding Parents and Teachers educators from part -time status to full-time status and I support A+ coordinators and additional social workers and counselors without appropriate and timely responses from the administration in the past, I cannot with good conscience approve this budget,” she said. Mrs. Danford said the board could still hold off on the vote on the budget until next month. “We do have a board policy that says we could table this and even vote on it in July if we wanted to,” she said. The school district operating budget for 2013-2014 was $116.5 million Some of the budget increase goes toward providing extra counselors and special education teachers in the district as well as converting nine Parents as Teachers positions from part time to full time. Dr. Fred Czerwonka said some of those positions actually began in the spring. “We looked at our ESOL population, the increase there needing to add some staff there. And Parents as Teachers trying to move them from part role to full-time roles to service more kids,” Dr. Czerwonka said. The budget puts the district in deficit spending. The board plans to use $4.3 million in its reserve fund to help offset the increase. “I think you have to look at the efficiency and adequacy, making sure were returning a good value for the dollar,” he said. Dr. Czerwonka said the levy sunsets in August 2015 and that will mean a reduction of $6.5 million in the budget. With 78 percent of budget going toward salary, that might mean cuts in staff. “We invest in people and thats our biggest resource and that dollar turns over and over in our community so we definitely need the public help to sustain that levy,” Dr. Czerwonka said.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 03:03:15 +0000
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