SNOW HILL — Financial figures for Greene County Schools have not yet been released by the state, but the system’s Board of Education went on to approve the 2013-14 school year budget calendar.
The district must present a budget to the county commissioners by May 15, making the funding map Step 1 in the process. After approved federal budget amendment, the current school year’s total was more than $5.5 million. The calendar is a list of dates preparing GCS for next year’s budget.
Administrators say they’ll just have to wing it for now.
“Even though, given the actions of the legislature, (the budget calendar) is always our best guess, particularly since we don’t have federal funding allotments yet,” said Nancy Harris, GCS chief financial officer, during a board meeting this week. “We have to present a budget calendar formulating next year’s budget which is due to the county commissioners, by law, on (May 15).”
When Harris presented the calendar to the board on Tuesday, she was clear that it was “very interim,” but GCS must meet the deadline.
“At least it’s a starting point,” said Patrick Miller, GCS superintendent. “We can come back and amend it as we get those numbers. It’s very rare that we have any concrete information from state, federal or local budge (at this time).”
He said North Carolina House and Senate budget figures typically start flowing in June, so the system modeled the upcoming calendar after last year’s budget. Miller also said he isn’t sure how overall federal cuts would affect the school district this year.
“It’s a crap shoot,” Miller said about submitting a budget calendar. “We would normally have our federal allotments by now, (and) we do not have those. We do not know how sequestration at the federal level will affect our federal dollars. We certainly don’t know what the county will appropriate and the General Assembly has not completed — really not even started — their budget process.”
The board will present as best a picture possible to Greene County commissioners during a joint meeting on May 13.
“We will probably ask the county manager for some direction,” Miller said. “We’ve unfortunately seen a decline in budget because of all the economic issues that have been going on since 2008-09.”
Jessika Morgan can be reached at 252-559-1078 or at jessika.morgan@kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessikaMorgan.
