Schools budget receives shoe increase, little else

    Murphy – Since state lawmakers failed to approve the 2019-20 fiscal year budget, Cherokee County Schools must continue working with the same monetary appropriations from two years ago.
    “We’re working on assumptions that our state budget will be exactly the same as it was the year before this current year,” Superintendent Jeana Conley told the Cherokee Scout.
    The school system’s budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year will be $7,079,540, which includes a new appropriation of $4,000 provided by county commissioners to purchase shoes for school maintenance and custodial staff.
    “We provide uniforms, and we want the uniforms to also include the shoes,” Conley said. “We feel like that’s something we need to do for our people. The maintenance staff need steel toe boots, cafeteria staff are recommended to wear a rubber sole, and depending on what they do in the building, custodians may need a boot or a work tennis shoe.”
    Although the state has not increased funding, and the county cannot afford to fund additional school expenditures besides the shoes, officials will move forward with repairing the septic system at Martins Creek Elementary/Middle School. The project, which should cost about $248,220, will be funded using county sales tax revenue designated for use by the school district.
    School officials asked the county to fund bus driver health benefits totaling $73,117 for the year. However, county commissioners declined that request because they feel the state should be responsible for funding those benefits. The county already provides money for 24 teaching positions that the state will not fund because the county has an excess number of educators due to the number of school campuses.
    “We have to stretch our transportation dollars because we have so many locations, and the state will only give us a certain amount of dollars based on the number of students we have,” Conley said. “The state will only fund a certain amount of [personnel], instructional supply and transportation based on a per pupil allotment. The county covers any overages, or we do without.”
    As a result, school officials will place bus driver health benefits on the back-burner until a later date.
    “We have to hold off,” Conley said. “We don’t have any extra money right now.”
    Despite the budget crunch, officials will move forward with Phase 1 of the Schools of Innovation project, which will place Tri-County Early College High School, the vocational career academy and The Oaks Academy alternative school on one campus adjacent to Tri-County Community College in Peachtree. The project is funded by $15 million provided through the state, plus $5 million dollars of county sales tax revenue that school officials saved over the years.