By By KERRY WHIPPLE BEAN – publisher
Brewton City Schools have a &#8220good budget” to work with this coming year, Superintendent Lynn Smith told board members Monday.
In a public budget hearing attended by no one from the public, Smith said that despite a teacher pay raise and rising costs for insurance and other expenses, the school system should end the year with a strong fund balance.
State funding per school system is calculated based on average daily attendance for the previous year.
School systems can supplement what they receive with local money.
For example, Brewton City Schools will be allocated enough state and federal funds in the coming year for 118.21 teacher units and uses local money for another 33.54 teacher units.
The school system will use local funding to maintain its teacher levels and to add a reading coach at Brewton Middle School and a counselor at T.R. Miller High School.
Other changes this year include a $525 allocation to each teacher for classroom supplies.
Last year, Smith said, teachers had to give up $100 of that student materials fund to a common purchase fund.
The budget also allows the school system to continue to set aside oil and gas severance tax revenue and revenue from a 10-mill bond issue passed in 2003 to help fund capital projects.
The school board last month approved a five-year capital plan that includes construction of a new middle school and renovations to athletic facilities at T.R. Miller.
Those capital projects will be funded by a $17.5 bond issue and the debt serviced by the oil and gas severance tax revenue and revenue from the 10-mill tax issue, along with state funds allocated to capital projects.