Hall School Board members look at smaller budget

GAINESVILLE - Hall County School Board members settled down to an evening of reviewing a proposed $199-million 2014 budget after recognizing teachers of the year and retirees during the annual 'Night of Honor' program at Chestatee High School Monday night.

School Superintendent Will Schofield said the Hall tax digest is going to dip but not plunge as it did during the recession years and state cuts are not as sharp with the system picking up around $2-million, but the budget is still in a 'deficit mode'.

"The Hall County School District's portion of teacher retirement and health insurance premiums has increased about $3.4-million," Schofield said. "The fact that we balanced our budget this year by spending five to six million dollars of our savings says that we're spending more than we're able to bring in and we're still a long way from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel."

Schofield observed that 90 percent of the system's expenditure is on personnel and teacher retirement and health insurance is part of that, but compared to past years, the budget is smaller with more students.

"It looks like this budget is going to come in just a shade under $200-million,"according to the Superintendent. "I remember in 2008 when we had 1,500 fewer students our budget was $218-million."

Hall County has significantly more students, with two elementary schools full of students, but the budget is down nearly $18-million from where it was five years ago. Schofield credited system employees who met the goal of doing 'more with less'.

"Our people have been incredible, they haven't complained and they've looked for every opportunity to cut costs," Schofield said. "But our folks are tired, we're just at the point where there's not much more meat to cut, we're down to the bone and we're going to do what we need to; we're going to spend some reserves to get through."