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Show School Budget Earmarks Funds For Reduction of Deficit A budget for Grand County School District, to be presented to the Public in a public hearing hear-ing set for next Monday night at 7:30 p.m., shows added revenues from the State Uniform School Kund for the comingyear as a result of new legislation, legis-lation, but drastically reduced re-duced spending throughout through-out the District. The result re-sult of this budget will be the application of considerable con-siderable funding during the next fiscal year to a cumulative deficit which has built up over a two year period. At the end of this fiscal fis-cal year, June 30, the deficit for two years in Grand School District will be $109,389, according accord-ing to Superintendent Bill B. Meador. In a total budget lor the coming year, some $52,823 will be applied, leaving a deficit def-icit at the end of the next fiscal year at only $56,-5(!(i. $56,-5(!(i. "By writing this application ap-plication into our budget, we will be able to conduct normal school operations and completely eliminate our deficit within the three years planned for the task," Mr. Meador stated this week following follow-ing a review of the budget by the School Board. Total funds budgeted for Maintenance and Operation Op-eration in the District for next year amount to $1,274,6-17 compared to $1,318,161 spent during dur-ing the year just ended. Major cuts have been made throughout all categories cate-gories of the budget to come up with this reduced figure. In Capital Outlay and Debt Service, a budget category nob in deficit, planned expenditures amount to $315,634 for the coming year. $65, 000 will be spent in school food services; $3,800 in tort liability; and$15,200 in the recreation fund. These figures are similar simi-lar to amounts budgeted and spent during the current cur-rent year. In revenues, it is anticipated anti-cipated that about half of the revenues will be received re-ceived from local property prop-erty taxes; with the remaining re-maining money to come from the State Uniform School Fund. In figuring taxes, it was anticipated that the assessed as-sessed valuation of Grand County, when all figures are in during August, will be $19.4 million. Property taxes were figured on the basis of 98 per cent collections. For figuring State revenues, reve-nues, a "weighted pupil" unit formula was used, combining average daily membership figures and average daily attendance projections, and adding special units allocated for various purposes. School District analysts are predicting enrollments enroll-ments at the beginning of the school year to be 1,736 in average daily membership and 1,632 in daily attendance. These figures are about what the District ended the last year at. Major cuts in the M & O budget come in the categories of administration admini-stration and instructional staff. The administration budget has been cut from $61,617 to $56,500. The budget for instructional staff has been cut from $820,434 to$751,620.The District will be operating with a considerably reduced re-duced staff to make these reductions possible. Two categories, however, that have been increased in the new budget reflect needs the district has accumulated during two years of austerity operation. oper-ation. Textbook purchases pur-chases will be jumped from $5,700 to $9,500 and teaching supplies will be increased from $13,800 to $17,500. Another area of increase is in maintenance mainte-nance of plant. There the budget was increased from $15,720 to $24,200. Following the public hearing next Monday, the Board of Education will take final action on approving ap-proving the budget. The public is invited to attend at-tend the hearing, which will be held in the District Dis-trict Offices on Fourth East Street. Superintendent Meador stated that for the first time in many years, no federal funds was figured into projections of revenue. reve-nue. It was the unexpected loss of many of those funds that resulted in the deficit this year he said. Congress has taken no action on legislation to provide funds for federally fed-erally impacted school districts at this time. |