Rowan-Salisbury School System leaders dodged a bullet last month when the state took back some of its funding from districts whose enrollments this year turned out to be less than projected.
Rowan-Salisbury wasn’t so lucky last week. Officials learned the system will have to carve more than $817,000 in state funds from the local spending plan to help Gov. Mike Easley come up with $1.2 billion to cover North Carolina’s budget shortfall.
That’s a direct hit in the education wallet, but the consequences could be worse for the local school system.
This time, no school system is exempt, nor are state-funded charter schools. In all, the 115 districts across North Carolina will reduce their budgets by $58 million. And Rowan’s not really better off than other districts that had to return more money ó such as Cabarrus County Schools, which will lose $1.1 million ó since the latest round of cuts are also based on enrollment, with each district giving back about $39 per student.
Although Rowan-Salisbury got $111.5 million from the state this year, the cut still hurts. And the challenge for local leaders is to avoid spreading the pain to the classroom. Superintendent Dr. Judy Grissom said last week Rowan-Salisbury officials “will do everything we can for the classroom not to be affected.”
The good news, if there is any in this announcement, is that the cuts weren’t totally unexpected. Grissom said local education officials “weren’t excited to hear it, but we certainly weren’t surprised.” Maybe that gave them a jump on planning how to absorb the funding cuts, but if that’s the case, they’re not letting on.
The state gave the districts the flexibility to figure out where the cuts can be made and a Dec. 19 deadline to decide, and Grissom said Rowan-Salisbury officials were just beginning to look at where they might save money. The Board of Education will likely talk about it at its meeting Monday.
More good news ó again, if any part of this can be considered “good” ó is that the system’s foresight might make the task a little easier. Rowan-Salisbury set aside an extra $400,000 in this year’s budget to help pay for bus fuel in case the state allotment came up short, as it did last year. Meanwhile, diesel prices have fallen along with the price of gasoline ó another silver lining in a dark economy ó and that could help local leaders absorb some of the loss.
Other cuts could come in areas where the school system hasn’t used all the state money in the past.
And the timing of the state cuts could be worse. An August analysis found the school system in sound financial health, and it said Rowan-Salisbury has about $2 million in savings not designated for any expenditure this year.
So although any sizable chunk sliced from a school system’s budget is bad news, Rowan-Salisbury leaders appear to have put themselves in decent shape to handle it.
That’s good news, too, because they might want to get an early start planning for next year, when some analysts say the state could face a $3 billion budget shortfall. And that’s a cannon shot.