School Board Says Supervisors Obligated to Adopt Its Budget
The School Board on Tuesday night approved a $186.4 million operating budget for fiscal 1999 -- an increase of more than $33 million over the 1998 spending plan -- then said the county supervisors have an "obligation" to adopt the budget in full.</br></br>Board members acknowledged that the budget is a substantial increase, but they said growth, inflation and the stunting effects of the supervisors' past budget cuts, have made it necessary. School Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III has said that in the last eight years, the supervisors have given the schools $62.3 million less than requested.</br></br>"The Board of Supervisors could have funded every dollar of the School Board's approved budget within the eventually adopted tax rate and still produced a surplus," said School Board member Edward J. Kiley (Mercer).</br></br>"Instead, they reduced it by $64 million and put us under the inflation curve. If that happens again this year, then some people in this county ought to be ashamed of themselves."</br></br>The School Board made a few minor changes, involving teachers' salaries, to Hatrick's initial $185.5 million proposal, bumping up costs an additional $900,000. The board also approved a $214.9 million operating budget for fiscal 2000, $300,000 less than Hatrick's proposal.