The Covington Rifles Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans will meet at 6 p.m. on Thurs., Sept. 4, in the Andalusia Public Library. Member Francis McGowin will present part two of his account of the "Life of General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson."

The Andalusia Board of Education passed a balanced budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year Tuesday night, although those involved said it was a challenge to balance, in light of statewide cuts in education funding.

"It was a very challenging budget for us to balance," said Andalusia City Schools Superintendent Dr. Beverly McAnulty at the budget's first public hearing on Aug. 25. "But we believe it is a good budget."

The biggest challenge facing the budget for the upcoming school year is a considerable decrease in state funding. The ACS received $230,414 less in state funding this year than in the 2007-08 fiscal year.

"The majority of our funds come from the state, so you can see how the decrease of state funding affects us so much," McAnulty said.

The ACS projects it will have expenditures of $16.24 million dollars in the 2008-09 fiscal year, with projected revenues of $16.3 million dollars. Of that $16.3 million, state funding makes up $10.48 million, or 64 percent. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1 and the budget has to be sent to the state by Sept. 15.

Other major funding sources for the budget include local tax revenues (16.2 percent, $2.64 million); federal revenues (9.98 percent, $1.63 million) and local school revenues (3.0 percent, $493,700).

McAnulty explained that the decrease in state funding would have to be made up through adjustments in items purchased with state funding, some of which would have "direct instructional impact." Examples of such adjustments include $28,568 less for textbooks, $13,298 less for student materials and $10,701 less for technology.

An additional local budget adjustment had to be made to accommodate advanced degrees earned by ACS teachers. Any teacher who earns a master's or higher advanced degree is entitled to an automatic pay raise, and these raises represented an extra $48,000 in salaries to be paid out by the ACS.

To help make up the difference, cuts were made to maintenance costs ($100,000 less) and professional development ($25,000 less).

A major increase on the expenditures side of the budget arose from the increased costs of utilities and fuel. The ACS projects an increase of $120,000 in expenditures for utilities. Also, a mandatory upgrade of accounting software must be purchased for $27,000. In total, the system is spending $236,220 more in local funds to help offset cuts in state funding.

McAnulty said the budget as currently written should be solvent, but did not rule out possibly having to tap into reserve funds in the future. By law, the system is required to maintain a reserve fund balance that is equal to one month of operating expenses - slightly more than $2.8 million.

"We are not proposing a budget that will go into our reserves," she said. "But it is certainly possible. We are hoping to not have to do that. In the case of utilities, we are estimating that we will pay $120,000 more in utilities this year than last year. If we end up going over $120,000, then we'd have to dip into our reserves to pay the difference.

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