School officials
look to stimulus to bolster bleak budget
By Scott Nicholson
With North Carolina schools expected to get up to $2 billion
in funding through the federal stimulus package over the next
two years, local school officials hope the additional spending
will offset state budget cuts.
However, since the funds are one-time payments, public schools
are still sorting out how to best use the funds and how the budget
will look in 2012 and beyond.
Watauga County schools superintendent Marty Hemric said the local
system would begin receiving funds this month, but the total appropriation
of $1.29 million would be spread over 27 months.
“There’s no specific date, but we do know the ballpark
is that half of the stimulus funds will come in April and the
other half by late October,” Hemric said. “It’s
important for all of us to understand these funds come to us in
two channels, with stringent guidelines about how they can be
used by the school systems.”
Hemric said the two funds are part of an annual allotment from
the federal government, but regular revenues received from the
state and federal governments are expected to decline. Hemric
said the good news was the presidential directive for the stimulus
funds put job retention as a top priority, which matches the goals
of local school leaders.
“There’s some flexibility in covering shortfalls in
budgets,” Hemric said. “The guidelines are to save jobs
and create jobs, with the third principal to use the money for
short-term investments that will result in long-term benefits.”
Hemric said technology upgrades and professional development could
fit the latter category, but with “all options on the table,”
the school’s budget team will have to shuffle the various
funds to preserve teaching positions, especially with an anticipated
state budget cut of between 3 and 7 percent.
“We will balance the three pieces--state, local and federal.
Normal budgets have been hit hard because of decreased revenues.
Even our local revenues have been hit pretty hard this last fiscal
year,” Hemric said. “I know the county commissioners
are going to step up to the plate and do all they possibly can
but the bottom line is they have fewer revenues.”
Hemric said one possibility for saving teaching jobs would be
to absorb positions of people who leave the system and “gain
advantage via attrition.” Any jobs retained or added through
one-time funds would also create new challenges once those funds
were gone.
“When funds were expended, if used entirely for recurring
expenses, that would put you in a situation two years from now
that you don’t want to be in,” Hemric said. “Our
first commitment is looking out for quality of instruction in
the classrooms — to keep kids first and protect the quality
of the classroom — and our teachers are our best asset.”
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is providing
$48.6 billion to states in exchange for a commitment to advance
essential education reforms to benefit students from early learning
through post-secondary education. Another $5 billion will be awarded
in specific education programs.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, those goal areas
are: college- and career-ready standards and high-quality, valid
and reliable assessments for all students; development and use
of pre-K through post-secondary and career data systems; increasing
teacher effectiveness and ensuring an equitable distribution of
qualified teachers; and turning around the lowest-performing schools.
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