There was no fanfare, no controversy and no dust to settle. And after a short presentation June 29 by Fayette County School System Comptroller Laura Brock, members of the Fayette County Board of Education unanimously adopted the $178.9 million General Fund budget that took effect July 1.
The school system began the 2009-2010 school year with a budget of $185.5 million. The tentative adoption of the $178,806,358 General Fund budget for FY 2011 includes the use of $5.09 million in fund balance dollars that were carried over from FY 2010 since the school system expects to see only $173,715,915 in revenues for the 2010-2011 period.
As in previous budget presentations, Brock told board members the new budget includes $5.19 million from the $17.9 million fund balance carried over from June 30.
Brock and Superintendent John DeCotis noted cuts in state funds anticipated in the coming months. Those cuts could amount to several million dollars for the Fayette school system.
“We’ve built this budget so we can weather those cuts because we have a reasonably healthy fund balance,” Brock said.
In addition, with the June 30 retirement of long-time Superintendent John DeCotis, Deputy Superintendent Fred Oliver will temporarily fill his position until the new superintendent is hired.
Given that it could take weeks until the replacement can be hired, the Board of Education recently selected Oliver to be in charge of the school system until that time.
In the absence of a superintendent and as deputy superintendent, Oliver is the school system’s highest ranking administrator.
The school system recently reported that the first round of interviews will begin in mid-July. All totaled, the school system received 32 applications from 15 states.
