CHARLESTON, W.Va.— The Kanawha County Board of Education approved its budget for next fiscal year Tuesday.
The $312.1 million spending plan, which will go into effect July 1, includes a 5% spending cut and a $2.6 million decrease in state funding because of a drop in student enrollment.
“Essentially this year we had to make some staffing cuts to stay in line with the revenue we’re going to receive that correlates with our decline in student enrollment,” said Kanawha County Schools Treasurer Melanie Meadows said.
The school board cut 58 staffing positions, including 37 professional and 21 service personnel jobs. School Superintendent Tom Williams previously basically all employees who lost their jobs would be offered other positions through attrition.
The school system lost a total of 675 students in the 2021-22 year and 380 in 2022-23 and will lose an estimated 344 students next year.
Meadows said the county will have to continue to watch the enrollment numbers.
“The state funding is based primarily on student enrollment, but this year we are seeing some increases in our utilities and some increases in our liability insurance that we’re going to have to cover,” she said.
The increase costs include a 118% increase in property and liability insurance premiums from the Board of Risk and Insurance Management (BRIM), along with an estimated $1.5 million increase in utility and disposal costs.
The board of education voted two weeks ago to close Marmet, Grandview and Weimer elementary schools after next school year to further cut costs in the 2024-25 fiscal year budget.
The school board also approved Tuesday $10 million in the Permanent Improvement Fund, over $51 million in the Special Revenue Fund, and more than $40 million in the Federal Stimulus Stabilization Fund for the upcoming school year.