Putnam School Board Approves Budget Draft, Gap At $8.475 Million

The Putnam County School Board approved the third draft of its proposed budget Thursday.

Superintendent Jerry Boyd said the gap between projected revenue and expenditures stands at $8.475 million.

“The only change to draft 3 budget was the change in revenue. The penny rate has not been certified yet, but working with the budget committee, we’ve utilized the increase in penny rate to project the property tax revenue, which was a slight increase for us,” Boyd said. “We certainly have a lot of work to do and a significant gap between our revenues and planned expenditures.”

The projected penny rate helped decrease the gap from $8.8 million. Boyd said spending cuts won’t be made until the county provides a solid funding figure to the school system.

“There is certainly always priorities and none of them are easy, as far as what we would remove or what we could not move forward with this year,” Boyd said. “But it’s a necessary thing. Schools are going to open and we provide services to almost 12,000 students. When those doors open we have to be ready.”

The Putnam County Budget Committee meets Monday. A decision on the school budget could possibly be made during that meeting.