White County School System Receiving Additional $10k From State

The White County School System will receive an additional $10,000 from the state’s Basic Education Program (BEP) next school year.

Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said the additional funds will provide a slight boost to the district’s new budget plan.

“It’s the funding formula that is given to us from the state, and it changes through the years,” Dronebarger said. “There’s opportunities where they give or take away from that, so we were fortunate enough to receive $10,000 more than we thought we were going to be alloted through that funding process. So we made that slight adjustment to the version that the board had actually studied earlier in the week.”

The White County Board of Education unanimously approved the adjustment and the 2019-2020 budget during Thursday’s meeting.

Dronebarger said despite the additional revenue, the district will likely be operating at a slight deficit next year.

“We try and save the money through the year, we don’t spend all the categories out so we’re able to kind of pay some of that back,” Dronebarger said. “Right now we’ve been able to do some really, really exciting things to move our system forward. It’s ambitious but doable, and I think it’s showing dividends for our citizens and our students.”

White County commissioners will still need to approve the school system’s overall budget proposal when they next meet June 17.