District approves draft budget

By AMBER DILLEY
Glasgow Daily Times

GLASGOW January 16, 2009 12:03 pm

— The Barren County Board of Education met Thursday night to approve a draft budget for the 2009-10 school year.
The district has to have a draft budget reviewed and the Kentucky Department of Education notified by Jan. 30.
However, most school districts aren’t changing anything in their budgets for next year and are reviewing a “roll-over” budget instead.
“We found many districts are doing this simply because we don’t know what is in store for us in the next school year,” said Superintendent Jerry Ralston. “Due to a lack of information and the fact that the General Assembly won’t reconvene until Feb. 3, we are presenting a draft budget and saying we cannot make any significant changes at this point.”
Finance Officer Sarah Vincent said the total for the draft budget is $27,491,000.
Capital outlay is listed as $419,000, the building fund is $3,701,000 and the food services fund is still $2,814,000.
“Of course, all of this will change when the General Assembly finishes its work and we can come back and develop the tentative working budget that we can send in this May,” Ralston said.
The General Assembly will meet from February to March this year and will decide how much state funding Kentucky school districts will receive.