Despite decreased state funds, Chapel Hill’s public school district managed to protect student programs and teacher positions for the coming year.
The district’s $124 million operating budget remained largely intact from last year thanks to action from the Orange County Board of Commissioners.
“No program was eliminated because of budget concerns. The only exception is kindergarten foreign language,” said Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education Chairman Mike Kelley. “Every employee who did not have performance issues who wanted to stay in the district kept their job.”
The commissioners followed a recommendation to move $1 million from the district’s capital budget — which funds new construction, maintenance and technology — to the operating budget, said Superintendent Neil Pedersen.
The capital budget’s remaining deficit of almost $2.6 million was covered by federal money from Congress’s Education Jobs Fund as well as construction bonds that make money available to schools at low or no interest, Pedersen said.
“We feel like we’ve sort of dodged a bullet this year, but school districts are extremely concerned about what will happen next year if those federal funds are not available,” he said.
The jobs fund will provide $2 million to the district over the next two years. Combined with construction bonds, the money will allow the McDougle Elementary and Middle Schools to move forward with their roofing projects.
But the scarcity of capital funding has left its mark, delaying the opening of a new elementary school originally slated for 2010. Pedersen, who said the school won’t open until 2012 at the earliest, said the delay will increase overcrowding in elementary schools.
And though federal funding helped protect the district budget, some existing programs had to be downsized.
