Budget Deficit Workable In Putnam Schools’ First Draft

All Putnam County School staff would receive a four percent raise under the system budget’s first draft approved Thursday night.

The raise totals some $2.422 million, some of which will be paid for through the legislature’s appropriation. With property tax rates yet to be set because of reappraisals, the school system currently faces a $2.6 million budget deficit.

“Often at this point in the year, we have a seven, eight, nine million dollar gap, so to only have a little over two and a half million dollars, that sounds like a lot of money, but when you’re looking at a hundred million dollar budget, that’s not huge,” Director of Schools Corby King said. “And I feel good about that moving forward.”

The budget’s first draft includes a limited number of a new positions including a new drama teacher at Upperman High School. King said that position is needed to continue the system’s work to even up offerings at the three high schools.

“They’ve not had a drama teacher at the high school,” King said. “This is something that’s been needed for a long time to to add some equity and add those programs and opportunities for students.”

Another long-needed high school position for the system, additional paid help in the Cookeville High School attendance office. King said if not for the parent volunteers that work in that office, the work would not get done.

The system will also budget to replace five special education buses and two other buses.

All told, the system budget features a $4.157 million increase in expenses this year.

“So this is a good place to start,” School Board Chair Lynn McHenry said. “We look forward to working with the county commission on this budget. We think we’re going to be in very good, very good condition.”

Also Thursday night, the board got an update on pre-registration for the new school year.

A total of 662 students pre-registered for kindergarten in the Putnam County Schools. The number is lower than last year’s 698, but Attendance Supervisor Chris Pierce said it still falls in-line with preliminary estimates.

“We do anticipate enrolling about another 100 to 150 kindergarten students through the summer registration day,” Pierce said. “You guys know it’s for various reasons. We have a lot of families who choose not to take advantage of the early period. We have several families who are moving in, already contacted me about trying to find places and we don’t have that kind of turning out to be now.”

Pierce said as of right now, no elementary school in the system has a capacity rating over 90 percent. Upperman High School sits over 100 percent of its stated capacity, but Pierce said student teacher ratios and class sizes are still under the state limits.

“It’s expanded somewhat because the middle school had a very, very large 8th grade class to transition up to there,” Pierce said. “We kind of knew this was coming and that building has absorbed that.”

King said high school enrollment is a bit of a misnomer, because the total population is rarely on campus at the same time because of dual enrollment and other programs.