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Mountain Home News

Extra state money for schools won't restore programs

Monday, July 25, 2011

The Mountain Home School District will receive $778,777 as its part of an $85 million surplus that the state is enjoying due to increased revenues as the economy begins to recover.

But it probably won't help restore any of the programs that were cut for this fall's school year.

The state is allocating $68 million of that surplus to public schools and community colleges to fulfill commitments to the federal government to maintain funding levels, a commitment made when the state accepted $51 million last year to help preserve teachers' jobs....

Because of the timing in the budget process of the unexpected additional revenue from the state, it would be difficult for the district to reallocate the funds. The budget for the school year that begins next month is essentially already set.

School board chairman Jim Alexander said the board of trustees will begin discussing how to use the money, but he suggested that "what we're likely to do is just put it in the general fund, hopefully to offset some of the losses we've had.

"We're probably not going to be restoring any of the programs we cut."

He said, he expected the bulk of the funds would be carried over to the next fiscal year to help reduce the amount of money the district is expected to ask the voters for when it seeks to renew its supplemental levy next spring.

For more details, see this week's Mountain Home News

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    When will they learn to live within a budget and quit asking for more? They are trying to get blood out of a rock and using the children as pawns. This is what makes me sick; if anyone else used kids like the school district does it would be considered child exploitation or even abuse. They are going to ask for more, how about they give up some of those 6 figure salaries the school district administration enjoys. My home dropped 14k in value but my mortgage went up due to taxes, levies, and bond. It wouldn't be so bad but the shared sacrifice isn't by all.

    -- Posted by Trouble2011 on Mon, Jul 25, 2011, at 7:34 AM

  • I would hope that the funds do not go to line the pockets of the already overpaid school administration. This money needs to be used for the students to include books for the classrooms, teacher salaries and programs in the arts.

    -- Posted by sespringe on Mon, Jul 25, 2011, at 8:23 PM
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    They will conveniently come up with a reason the money has to go to pay and not the kids like they did with the last pot of money they received.

    -- Posted by Trouble2011 on Mon, Jul 25, 2011, at 8:26 PM
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    Junkyard Dog,

    I can't give you the exact dates but I can give you a couple of examples and places.

    1. Remember the 2 year levy that passed last year? Well my son who attended the high school came home one day before the vote and told me what happened at school that day. He told my wife and me that his math teacher didn't teach math but talked about the levy during the entire class. The teacher told them that they better go home and tell their parents that they need to vote for it or it would be the apocalypse. He said that this was not just discussed in one class but that most (not all) of the teachers were basically spreading panic instead of teaching. He didn't buy into it.

    2. The next is the Tom Luna deal. The administration and teachers (again not all) turned their heads and some even encouraged the kids to leave school grounds during class to stand on American Legion and protest. This was against the official administration statement but was quietly pushed behind the school doors, under the table you might say. I don't believe my son would just come home and lie about something like that. He didn't go but I did drove down the street and seen kids (some without shirts) yelling at cars a couple of kids standing in the street.

    -- Posted by Trouble2011 on Wed, Jul 27, 2011, at 9:18 AM
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