Buffalo Island Central School Board held a special meeting Thursday, Sept. 28, to approve the annual budget. Superintendent Gaylon Taylor reviewed the budget packet with the board members. The total expenditures for the budget is $7,638,093.
“About 67 percent of our budget is designated towards salary and that’s not just money we are taking out of the 2000 fund - that’s also money that may be designated from some state-aid funds and maybe some federal funds as well,” Taylor said.
Taylor said that percentage was “kind of in line” and he had seen other schools have numbers as high as 85 percent.
Taylor said some of the reason for increase from last year was due to hiring new teachers including a kindergarten teacher and two additional special education teachers.
“This is a pretty lengthy process and I know there are multiple ways to put together a budget," Taylor said. "We take a little more time and I apologize always for taking so long, but I think if we can get the same group next year it’ll be the first year in my six years we’ll have the same group of people being able to work on it."
Taylor said looking at the budget it would appear that BIC has a $16 million budget, but that is only true if you take into account all of the “transfers.”
“You know what I mean by the transfers, teacher’s salary is not considered revenue but you have to code it as that, so you’ll see that twice,” Taylor said.
The board also discussed an update on the construction of the new school buildings. Leachville is still ahead of schedule and Monette is still behind schedule.
The board approved the hiring of Leigh Hanneken as a special education instructional assistant. The board also approved to hire Lisa Turner, Janie Sparkman, Faith Rolland and April McClelland for after school tutoring programs.