The Worcester County Commissioners recently approved several transfers within the Fiscal Year 2024 board of education budget upon request from Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Vince Tolbert.
The Worcester County Board of Education building in Newark is pictured.
File photo
Bethany Hooper, Associate Editor
The Worcester County Commissioners recently approved several transfers within the board of education budget.
With approval from the school board to make adjustments to the school system’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget, Worcester County Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Vince Tolbert came before the commissioners at a meeting earlier this month seeking their support as well. Officials report several transfers needed to be made to cover overages within five categories of the school system’s budget ending June 30.
“We reduced instructional salaries, other instructional costs, and fixed charges to cover those overages in those other categories,” Tolbert said. “So there’s no increase in our operating budget. It was just a transfer among the different categories of those funds.”
The school system this year recorded nearly $1.5 million in overages among five categories – administration, instructional support, student transportation, operation of plant, and maintenance of plant. To balance the fiscal year 2024 budget, officials proposed taking $957,310 from instructional salaries, $74,000 in other instructional costs, and $468,000 in fixed charges.
When Commissioner Jim Bunting asked about overages within the instructional support category, Tolbert said it was largely driven by software costs, but that additional funds from instructional salaries and fixed charges would cover it. Bunting, however, questioned if that transfer had any impact on after-school or summer programs.
“No, it did not,” Tolbert replied.
For his part, Commissioner Chip Bertino asked if the number of transfers within the board of education budget would decrease as the school system changed the way it made its budget. Tolbert said it would.
“We worked hard, as you know, over the last 12 months to realign certain categories,” he said. “And I think because of that, in FY25 and going forward, the amount of budgetary transfers would be much less.”
With no further discussion, the commissioners voted 5-1, with Bunting opposed and Commissioner Caryn Abbott absent, to approve the school system’s requested budget transfers. The commissioners also voted unanimously to advertise and hold a public hearing to amend the county’s fiscal year operating budget.