Schools likely to end year on budget

By M.K. Luther - mkluther@nvdaily.com

FRONT ROYAL -- Warren County Public Schools likely will close out the year on budget despite hefty state funding cuts.

Ten months into the fiscal year, the district has spent close to 69.5 percent of its approved budget and received 69.5 percent of its planned revenue, according to a financial status report prepared by Director of Finance Robert Ballentine.

Ballentine will present the April 30 financial status update at Thursday's regular School Board meeting at 7 p.m. at the Warren County Government Center.

The school system had to make up for a nearly $1.2 million reduction in state revenue following the approval of Virginia's budget by the General Assembly.

"We have had to make adjustments to offset that $1.2 million," Ballentine said, noting that state funding is typically not reduced that drastically. "But certainly these are not normal times."

The school system will use savings from the Virginia Retirement Savings premium holiday set for April, May and June to help localities compensate for the state cuts, which reduced the VRS premiums from a little more than 13 percent to 5 percent for those months, Ballentine said.

The school system already had asked individual schools to limit the use of substitute teachers to produce a cost savings for the year.

All departments also were asked to restrict non-labor expenditures to 90 percent of their already approved budget.

The school system also conserved money by spending less on utilities than predicted in the budget, Ballentine said.

"Utilities were not as bad as we thought it could be," Ballentine said.

The school system received a slight reprieve by an increase in average daily membership, which is one of the factors used to determine state funding. The district had an average daily membership of 5,317 pupils as of March 31. The schools had originally budgeted for an estimated average daily membership of 5,292.

The rise in actual pupil numbers will give the school system a boost of about $100,000 in state funding, Ballentine said.

Ballentine said savings from staff attrition also helped close the deficit.