NEWARK – School system officials approved an updated budget this week before sharing their frustrations regarding the process.
The Worcester County Board of Education voted 6-1 this week to approve a $127.5 million budget for the coming fiscal year. The budget includes cuts the board made last week in response to the maintenance of effort (MOE) budget approved by the Worcester County Commissioners.
Following the budget’s approval several board members took the opportunity to address the relationship between county officials and the school system.
“Let’s move forward,” school board member Donald Smack said. “Stop attacking one another. Love one another. Put God first and we’ll be alright.”
Vince Tolbert, the school system’s chief financial officer, presented the board this week with an updated budget that reflected cuts made in response to the county allocation of about $101 million that was approved by the commissioners this month. Tolbert said the proposed budget initially adopted by the school board in March included a requested increase in county funding of $4.1 million. The county, however, approved an MOE budget that provides about $280,000 less than the school system got this year. Tolbert said the MOE funding resulted in a budget shortfall of $4.4 million.
Boo Hoo. You got but hurt when the Commissioners ‘suddenly’ asked for detailed accounting of tax payer dollars spent. That is the way it is SUPPOSED to be.
This is a different set of Commissioners and Chip Bertino was right to lead this charge. I absolutely guarantee that neither the Board members or the school system would run their budgets at home with out carefully looking at every dollar spent.
It’s kind of like giving your teenager a credit card and no guidance. It won’t take long for them to run up a balance. As a parent, you wouldn’t increase the balance for your teen when they did this. You would teach them to responsibly manage their money and show them how to pay their bills. The BOE is now the teen, and the Commissioners are now the parents.