BOE Passes Budget, Fends Off Cuts from Feds

When you add the increase to the existing price of health insurance multiplied by 300 certified employees over 12 months, the cost to the county is an estimated $ 540,000.The Board of Education passed its FY12 budget at its September 22nd meeting last week. Although the county came in under budget, pressing concerns threaten the same result for next year’s budget. According to the discussion at the meeting, two major concerns for the county next year are health insurance and deeper cuts in federal funding.

In her commentary on the budget, Chief Financial Officer Amy Burgess said that the county experienced some increases in health insurance this year, but was able to manage the increases and keep expenditures under budget. Burgess suggested, though, that next year’s health costs will be a different story. Superintendent Ben Desper corroborated this comment. According to Burgess, come July 1st, the county may see an increase in health insurance of $150 per employee per month. At first, the cost seems minimal. However, when you add the increase to the existing price of health insurance multiplied by 300 certified employees over 12 months, the cost to the county is an estimated $ 540,000. According to Desper, these increases are merely in anticipation of the implementation of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), not an actual implementation of the legislation, itself. The implication, here, is that if these increases are merely from insurance companies anticipating Obamacare, then the companies and counties will receive an even greater increase when the program is eventually implemented. So, who pays for these increases? At a Tea Party Meeting last night, a school board member said that in the face of this scenario the board has two choices, either to raise taxes on the citizens or require the teachers to pay for the increases in health care costs out of pocket.

Superintendent Desper also expressed concern about another issue, another estuary of the larger lake of the budget. He mentioned the newly appointed “super committee” in Congress. The committee was a result of this past summer’s budget talks. As such, comprised of six Democrats and six Republicans the committee is designed to offer a bi-partisan recommendation of what departments and programs should be cut in the federal budget. If no recommendations are made by the committee by November 23rd of this year, certain programs will automatically be cut. One such program is the Title I program. Title I is an umbrella term for a variety of items. According to U.S. Department of Education, Title I strives to meet “the educational needs of low-achieving children in our Nation’s highest-poverty schools.” Losing this funding, could affect a variety of areas, such as supplies and other instructional needs.

When asked about plans to prevent the devastating scenario of losing Title I funding in Pickens County, Superintendent Desper said that “There is not enough information available yet to determine how much impact such a cut might make to Pickens County.” He added that if the cuts take place, the public can expect to see this topic on the agenda in future meetings.