Corning Union Elementary School District passes lean budget

The Corning Union Elementary School District has had to dip into its reserves to balance its budget.

On Tuesday, the school board voted to approve a $14.4 million budget for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, which began Wednesday. District Supervisor Steve Kelish said the budget is approximately $800,000 less than the prior year’s budget.

“The deficit spending is directly related to the governor’s proposed budget cuts to schools,” said Wes Grossman, district chief business official. “The district’s budget does not cut music or sports, but it does anticipate increases in certain class sizes, depending on grade level enrollment at each of the district’s school five sites.”

The district’s general fund expenditures of $14.4 million will exceed revenues by approximately $247,000. The shortfall will be covered by the district’s reserve fund of $1.1 million ending next budget year with reserves at 6.6 percent of total expenditures, Grossman said.

“The board’s fiscal core values of increasing reserves, and funding other post employment health benefits, adopted a number of years ago, has allowed the district to meet the challenges of the state budget cuts,” he said.

Both Grossman and Kelish suspect the district may have to make some staff reductions in three years to meet the reserve requirements. They said they and the school board will continue to look for cost savings that could reduce the threat of layoffs.

“Our preference is to be proactive rather than wait until that third year out to make other reductions,” Kelish said. “Budget years like these last two certainly supports our fiscal core value of a 10 percent reserve. It’s too bad the state doesn’t realize the importance of the need for reserves at that level.”

Grossman said the approved budget is based on the state’s May revised budget, but things could change at any time.

“It’s nuts,” he said. “We don’t know what to expect on a day-to-day basis and really don’t know what will happen in the end.”