Halifax Schools approve budget; begins repayment to state

HANK DEWALD /HERALD STAFF WRITER

HALIFAX - The Halifax County Schools Board gave its approval to a final 2008-2009 budget Tuesday evening and agreed to repay approximately $273,000 to the state - about one-third of what it owes the North Carolina treasury.

The new budget will restore work hours to some of the district's employees, according to District Financial Officer Andrew Callihan.

The meeting was upbeat despite the absence of board Chairman Tyrone Williams and Donna Hunter due to deaths in their families.

The meeting began with a special recognition period where the board honored several students who participated in a School of Engineering camp held at the Gateway Technology Center at North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount over the summer.

The program was staged by the North Carolina State University School of Engineering and allowed the students to work with robotics. Participating were Brandon Adams, Tierra Anthony Karla Luviano, Davetta Faulcon, Shameire Jackson, Damion Jeffers and Jade Mills, all upcoming freshmen.

During the information items portion of the meeting, Callihan presented the final budget items to complete and close out the 2007-2008 school year budgets.

Once the board moved on to action items, Callihan asked them to approve a contract with the accounting firm of Cherry, Bekaert & Holland to finish the audit on the 2006-2007 school years. All but board member Carolyn Hawkins approved.

Callihan reported that the firm has a tentative target date of Oct. 31 to complete the audit, which should finally clear up the district's murky financial picture.

The 2008-2009 budget Callihan presented actually calls for increasing the hours for food services employees who had seen their hours cut back to six hours per day due to the financial crises the district was in last year.

He gave each board member a complete breakdown of all expenditures for the entire school year. "You can actually go through and tell where we've budgeted every dollar in this school district for state and local school funds," Callihan told the board.

Besides just having an actual balanced budget before them, the most significant change seemed to be food services budget that allows those employees to regain work hours lost the previous year. Callihan said this budget puts them back in line with other districts in the state.

"I met with Mrs. Wills and her staff and I moved them from six hours to seven hours. The revenue should not change that much from last year and we are just maintaining the program. We think this is a budget that will work," Callihan said.

He then told the board that the district would receive approximately $273,000 in Medicaid administrative systems money and he recommended using the entire amount to repay part of the district's debt to the state Department of Public Instruction.

Callihan's repayment plan calls for repaying between $700,000 to $750,000 per year.