Wicomico Board Of Education Approves Final Budget For Fiscal Year 2009-10

The Wicomico County Board of Education at its regular meeting on Tuesday, June 9, approved the Consolidated Current Expense Budget for fiscal year 2009-10. The new budget year takes effect July 1.

The consolidated budget is $184,416,845, with the unrestricted portion totaling $165,806,553 from local and state sources and the remainder in restricted funds. Each line item in the budget is aligned to accomplish one or more of the Board’s Bridge to Excellence Master Plan strategic priorities of High Student Achievement, Safe Learning Environment, and Effective and Efficient Operations.

The final budget document is posted on the Board’s web site at www.wcboe.org. On the home page, click on "Links" and look under "Quick Links" for the approved budget.

The $18.6 million restricted portion of the budget includes many grants as well as more than $5.5 million from the federal American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Those funds are allocated for Title I ($2.55 million), IDEA/Special Education ($1.73 million), and State Fiscal Stabilization Funds ($1.22 million).. These one-time resources will be used to improve student achievement, help close the achievement gap, and provide funds for the school system to maintain and improve school facilities.

Back in April, the County Executive requested from the Maryland State Board of Education (MSBE) a waiver of the state’s maintenance of effort (MOE) requirement for FY 2010 due to the County’s projected budget shortfall of $2 million. On May 15, 2009 the MSBE denied the MOE waiver request. The Board of Education and Superintendent worked with the County Executive and Wicomico County Council to establish a plan to assist the County with balancing their FY 2010 budget to enable the county to meet the state’s maintenance of effort (MOE) requirement for FY 2010. Failure to meet the state’s MOE requirement would jeopardize over $4.6 millon in state and federal funds.

This plan calls for the Wicomico County Board of Education to remit to the County within 30 days after July 1 an amount equal to $2 million, from the Board’s School Construction Savings Fund (SCSF). The SCSF was established two years ago, with county approval, to enable the Board to set aside and accumulate unused operating funds at the end of each fiscal year, to be used solely for capital projects The fund has a current balance of $2.6 million.

A major component of the plan requires the school system to reallocate $1.3 million within the Current Expense Operating Budget for capital projects. In order to accomplish this requirement, “Across the board cuts in dozens of line items had to be made. It did not wipe out any single program, but it certainly will make a number of programs less supported,” Superintendent Dr. John Fredericksen said.

Among the budget highlights:

A step increase for eligible employees, to assist in recruiting and retaining a highly qualified workforce

A 3.3 % increase in the cost of health insurance , and additional funding for for insurance and fixed charges

Improvements for Instruction including funding for expanding the countywide technology integration program, reducing elementary class size, supporting students in meeting the state graduation requirement of passing the High School Assessments, hiring an additional teacher and assistant for Delmar Elementary to accommodate prekindergarten students from Delmar, Del., providing more early childhood education, hiring teachers to address enrollment growth of 178 students, and enhancing teacher/student academic and activity linkages

For Administrative Services, funding for a new technology position to troubleshoot and maintain interactive whiteboards; funding for development of a new comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), improvements to school web pages to make them more user friendly, upgrading the public information liaison position to full time, and consultant/contractual services to conduct a curricular audit

The fiscal 2009-10 budget also includes approximately $3.3 million innts. “The significance of these realignments,” Superintendent Fredericksen emphasized, “should not go unnoticed by the community. These represent significant cost avoidance measures on the part of our staff to recognize the changing needs of our diverse population. These realignments on the part of our program managers and supervisors demonstrate our commitment to spend funds efficiently and effectively and implement current best practices.

"These budget realignments will cover many important activities including the relocation of 10 portable units, additional accounting support for school bookkeepers, additional testing and reporting requirements, equipment and materials of instruction to support direct student instruction, the transition to electronically digitized archived student records, systemic renovations and one-time funding for DVR installation to continue our plan to install these units in our school buses. This bolsters our Safe Learing Enviroment intitiative.”