The Board of Education approved a balanced Fiscal Year 2014 budget of $195,981,911 on June 13, 2013. This approved budget is $716,543 less than the Board’s original budget request.
On February 21, the Board approved a budget proposal of $196.7, which was submitted to the Calvert County government for consideration. When the Board of County Commissioners approved its budget, it appropriated $1.9 million less for Calvert County Public Schools than originally requested by the Board of Education.
To balance the budget, the Board of Education increased the funds it will carry-over from FY 2013 to $2.4 million, decided to use $400,000 from Federal and reimbursed health care funds to partially off-set an increase in employee and retiree health care costs, and made cuts to almost every budget category. Expenses in the category of Fixed Charges were increased to reflect the increase in health care cost as set by the school system’s healthcare provider for employee and retiree health benefits.
Dr. Smith, superintendent, emphasized that the budget is extremely tight and will be subject to unpredictable events such as fuel cost fluctuations and unfavorable weather patterns.
Dr. Smith said, “To balance the FY 2014 budget, the school system is using 2.4 million dollars in carry-over money, which may not be available in FY 2015. In addition, it is using 400,000 dollars in restricted health care funds to pay a small portion of the school system’s costs for employee and retiree health care benefits. This effectively means that the school system will start the FY 2015 budget process 2.8 million dollars in the hole. This will have a significant effect on the school system moving forward.”
