Pickens School Board Adopts Tentative Budget

The Pickens County School Board met August 8 and adopted a tentative budget for 2014. Due to various factors including rising health costs and lower revenue income, a tight budget meant cuts.Revenues were down a total of $212,417. When asked how the decrease in monies was handled, CFO Amy Burgess answered

cuts were made in a multitude of areas including but not limited to reduction of teachers based on reduced student numbers, reduction of classified staff as positions were vacated and reassessed for need, reduction of operating expenses in multiple areas, reduction of single coverage medical contributions for staff, reduction of central office staff, elimination of programs that were not required, and restructuring of programs.

According to Burgess, driver’s education was eliminated.

In other school news, current enrollment was discussed as the school year kicked off. Shelley Cantrell, attendance officer, gave a report as of the second day of school. Overall 4,311 students have been registered for the 2013-14 school year, a decrease of 50 since the beginning of last year’s term. Cantrell reported the inclement weather as a factor, but also cited students moving out of district and some new homeschoolers as well. Cantrell stated

Usually, looking back at past history, our numbers continued to increase. So I’m hopeful we’ll see more students coming into the buildings.

The new district lines also played a part in individual school enrollments. Tate Elementary anticipated seeing an increase of 125 students due to an influx from Harmony Elementary. However, some students chose to remain at Harmony so Tate’s increase only numbered 42.

Please see attached document for a breakdown of the budget.
FY13Tentativebudget.pdf