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School Trustees resume spending guesstimates for 2008-09
The Halifax County School Board resumes the daunting task of preparing
a 2008-09 spending plan this week.
Their job is made that much harder by a number of unusual factors: a
sharply declining economy that pinches both state and county revenues
and an earlier-than-traditional timeline for handing in a budget
request to the Board of Supervisors that means Trustees are having to
finalize a budget without knowing their state allocation.
The Trustees have said a top priority is getting teachers and personnel
pay raises, but Supervisors have hinted that they want a zero-increase
budget; the governor's proposed budget shrinks allocations for pre-K
and has no teacher pay hikes and the House of Delegates proposed
budget shorts the local system about $1 million from the current year.
The State Senate version, due today, was not available by press time. A
final and decisive figure from the state won't come until about March
20, a month away. The budget work session is Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the
Mary Bethune Office Complex in Halifax.