Putnam Schools See Slight Decrease To Budget Gap

The Putnam County School System’s $8.838 million budget gap has decreased by $9,000.

The additional revenue comes from the latest funding estimate for the Basic Education Program (BEP). The program is a funding formula through which state education dollars are generated and distributed to Tennessee schools.

Superintendent Jerry Boyd said the school system will receive another estimate next month.

“We always like to see it increase, even if it’s only a small amount, but I don’t anticipate it fluctuating much more than that,” Boyd said. “We always hope it doesn’t go negative, and usually it’s a very slight difference from the April estimate to the July estimate.”

The Putnam County Board of Education approved the second draft of the upcoming budget Thursday. The budget gap stands at $8,829,000 million.

“The bulk of that is $2.293 million for a proposed 4-percent raise,” Boyd said. “There’s several items that we’ve listed for targeted deferred maintenance type items or improvement items that are needed. That’s over $1 million.”

The budget includes an additional $2.7 million for annual utility and fuel increases and $1.191 million for annual employee increases.

Boyd said Thursday that cuts will need to be made in order to balance the budget. He also said the fund balance will be utilized to decrease the gap.

“We’re not going to be fortunate this year where we end up with not dipping into that fund balance,” Boyd said. “We like to not have to use that part of the budget, but it looks like this year it’s very likely that we will.”

The Putnam County Budget Committee plans to discuss the school system’s budget in the next few weeks.