By By MaryClaire Foster
With schools across Alabama under proration, the Escambia County School Board on Thursday granted Superintendent Billy Hines' request for a hiring freeze.
Hines also outlined several steps the school system will take to cope with budget cuts, including using money from a local reserve fund.
Hines said the freeze would affect locally funded teacher units. The school board receives a certain amount of money from the state for teacher units based on enrollment; any extra teachers schools want must come from local funds.
Hines said Escambia County Schools will lose $2.42 million under proration, which Gov. Bob Riley set at 9 percent.
But Hines said the county does have a reserve fund to overcome those losses.
Hines spoke of his dismay at having to use the reserve funds.
Hines said he will be making the same proration presentation to schools in the counties this week and knows the question on many teachers' minds will be if their jobs will be cut.
Hines said he will be making moves to cut and absorb as many costs as possible, such as having bus drivers add routes when some routes are left without drivers and come up with a new substitute policy to reduce costs there.
While proration calls for tough decisions, Hines said he is confident the school board is in position to cope with the cuts.
In other business, the board: