Bath school board debates $80,000 surplus

WARM SPRINGS - Tuesday, the Bath County School Board closed out it fiscal year with a remaining surplus in the general fund of $80,433. The amounts of each category are: Instruction, $79,577; administration, $409; transportation, $119; and maintenance, $326.

In a separate category, due to money from the state and federal governments, the remaining balance in food service is $3,718. The balance had been shown at $12,198. According to Bath County School superintendent Dr. David Smith, that amount was reduced due to a revenue shortfall from the state.

At Wednesday's Bath County Board of Supervisors' meeting, the school will return a combined total of $84,151, to be put back into the county's general fund. However, the school board will ask the supervisors if the money could be used in three possible scenarios: a school contingency fund, the purchase of a new, state-of-the-art school bus, or for the various fueling needs of the school system.

Satur day, After B ath County Public School's business manager Justin Rider gave his report, a poignant statement was made by Joyce Hevener, representing the Williamsville school district. "I've been told over and over again," she said, "that if we turn it (the surplus) back in to them (the supervisors), they're not going to roll it back to us and let us use. But that money would have kept all of our positions that we had to eliminate it."

Hevener referred to the surplus money shown Tuesday and what was purchased by the schools after the school board vote during last month's regular meeting. That amount, not including food service, is $80,433 surplus in all four categories and the $93,596 actually spent by the schools in the purchases, for a total of $174,029.

Smith explained to Hevener that $150,000 of that amount was due to a one-time savings. "But isn't that what happened in 06-07, a one-time savings?" Hevener asked, then continued after Smith's explanation. "I know we spent the money for a good cause, as these are things the schools needed … that we weren't going to be able to use for next year's budget - we

Saturda y, Sep te mber 29 - 9 a.weren't going to have the money. But still, we had a lot of money left over in this year's budget."

Barbara Waldeck, representing the Valley Springs district, said she wrote a personal letter to the supervisors regarding the budget surplus of last year. "When we made up the 07-08 budget, yes, that $300,000 was still here (in the budget) and yes, they still gave us roughly another $200,000, but I made a list for them myself long before I got to that meeting at Valley (Elementary School) and long before I heard what Justin said. And, they have to remember that out of that money, we hired a teacher we did not have, we hired three new aides that we did not have, we gave all of our employees a 1.75 percent raise, which calculated out over $1 million - several million dollars in salaries … somewhere in there, if I was reading documents correctly, we paid $30,000 more in retiree insurance."

Waldeck said she told supervisors in her letter of five areas where they had spent the $360,000 in the current year that was not spent in the 06-07 school year. Waldeck could not remember all five areas; she could only remember three.

"Interestingly enough," Waldeck said about her letter, "if you take my $360,000 … from their (supervisors') magic $550,000, you come up with a different of $190,000, which is about what Justin told us we had. We don't have $550,000 extra this year. We never did have it. And we surely don't have it going into next year."

Hevener said she had never heard those figures and asked for a copy of the letter Waldeck sent. Hevener asked again if the school board gave the surplus to supervisors whether the school board would receive it back and was told no.

In response to Jake Cleek, representing the Warm Springs district, who mentioned using the surplus for the new teachers, Hevener said the school board could not spend "this year's money on next year's budget."

The board decided to have Smith represent the school board at Wednesday's supervisors' meeting along with Rider. The school board had several requests to put before the county board. One was to establish a contingency fund with the school system's leftover money. Another was to ask if supervisors would allow the school board to put surplus money into fuel oil. Smith added a third request of a school bus with handicapped accessibility.