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This
is my third consecutive article on the recent activity to get a budget
in place for next year's Bay County School system. After I worked hard
for a week to find $20.4 million in reductions from the General Fund
(published in last weeks PCityLIVE.com column) in accordance with Mr.
Peters public challenge, I must say I am more than a little confused by
what I saw in today's (Monday, July 28, 2008) News Herald.
The
Superintendent and Board published the proposed budget for next year.
It must be new math or some such thing. Addition and Subtraction are
not the highest levels of difficulty in mathematics, but it seems the
Board is struggling to get a right answer.
By
my calculations, $204 million (the 07-08 budget), take-away $20
million, is $184 million. And I didn't even need a calculator to
determine that. The reason for my confusion is that the Board's new
budget is $194 million in the General Fund for the 08-09 school year.
That would appear to be some $10 million short of the required
reduction.
Now
the Board either decided they didn't want chin the whole $20 million,
or they plan to be $10 million in the hole by year end, or the entire
story wasn't adequately communicated to the public in the first place.
I don't know what the real story is here, but whatever the truth is, it
isn't helping the Superintendent's and Board's credibility when it
comes to the schools finances. The message being broadcast in the last
few weeks was there would be big trouble in river city with a $20.4
million dollar cut in the general fund. And it turns out the cut is
only $10 million. The Superintendent and Board have declared victory
and are ready to move into the new school year.
I guess it is no surprise our students struggle with the math portion of
the FCAT. The Board seems to be having a problem with that as well.
image by Mykle Roventine used via the create commons license.
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