The DeKalb County school board gave a preliminary nod to interim Superintendent Michael Thurmond’s first school budget Monday, approving $759 million in general operating expenditures for the fiscal year starting July 1.
With two members absent, the board voted unanimously, though there was pressure by some members to cut a couple of Thurmond’s initiatives to either save more or give more to teachers.
Thurmond has been on the job since February, when predecessor Cheryl Atkinson quit. His FY 2014 budget is a sharp departure from the $78 million in cuts implemented by Atkinson and the prior board. They increased class sizes and imposed two additional furlough days (unpaid leave) on teachers while cutting library workers, interpreters, teachers aides and bus mechanics.
Thurmond’s budget utilizes new revenue to reverse some of that, eliminating one furlough day at a cost of $3 million while spending an additional $500,000 to hire back interpreters and $250,000 to restore bus mechanic positions. His budget also puts $1 million into an incentive program to encourage attendance by bus drivers and other support workers, with a bonus of $150 per employee for perfect attendance.
Thurmond also wants to spend $5.3 million to buy and restore books, and $1.5 million to upgrade back office computer systems.
Altogether, his proposed budget pours $14.5 million into such “enhancements” and puts $12.7 million in the bank.
Still, there are no pay raises for teachers nor decreases in the number of students per classroom.
Board members asked whether some expenditures — notably the attendance incentive program and computer system upgrades — were worth the money or could wait, or whether the legal budget could be cut further. David Campbell said he’d rather put more money into eliminating additional furlough days, “just to send the signal that we’re trying to right this ship as much as we can.”
Thurmond and his staffers defended the proposals, saying the district needs better software to monitor finances and still has to pay lawyers, even though the superintendent has drastically cut those costs. They said the attendance incentive is important because of the disruption that occurs when bus drivers miss work and students are late to school. Nonetheless, Thurmond said he expects the board to “put its fingerprints” on the budget before their final vote on June 26.
And, he noted, they can amend the budget any time.
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