The Newberry School District is dealing with multiple budget cuts from the State Department of Education due to a struggling economy, says Chief Financial Officer for the School District Susan Dowd, but taxes and personnel remain unscathed.

Dowd reports a total of just over $1 million in state cuts since October with more cuts on the horizon.

“I'm getting information daily, and unfortunately it's not good information,” said Dowd.

The School District of Newberry County will receive about $370,518 less from the state in Education Improvement Act funding, $407,886 less in Education Finance Act funding and about $75,000 less in various school assistance.

The cuts will not affect tax collection, said Dowd, because the district is limited in its ability to increase the rate of taxation. The cuts have also not affected many programs or personnel.

“When funding is reduced in a specific area, you may have to limit the services in that area, or shift the costs to general operating expenses,” said Dowd. “Obviously, any cuts are going to have an effect. Our district has numerous programs in place from early childhood to advanced placement. So far, none have been eliminated due to budget cuts.”

The district kept the $407,886 shortage in Education Finance Act funding from trickling to the classroom level with the $300,000 it squirreled away last year, in anticipation of budget cuts. The remaining $107,886 shortage was absorbed with shifted funding from within the district's general fund, said Dowd.

The district absorbed the $370,518 Education Improvement Act funding cut by moving funds from one Education Improvement Act-funded program to another, which Dowd said is not a common practice for the district.

The district also froze $172,000, or 10 percent, of budgeted expenditures for supplies, travel and purchased services for all schools and district departments to help with the Education Improvement Act funding cuts.

For a $75,000 state cut in technical assistance funding, or money for schools with a below average or unsatisfactory report card rating, Dowd says the district pulled money from the previous year's carryover funds of $6.1 million.

Additionally, the state is holding back 20 percent of all state-funded grant money for a $100,000 to $200,000 effect on the Newberry district.

Dowd says these state cuts are much larger than last years' cuts, and more are expected.

“They are working on another 2 to 3 percent (Education Improvement Act) cut,“ said Dowd. “I wish I had better news but it is what it is.”

The state, she said, “is struggling as well.”

Dowd said the state is currently working on a 7 percent cut for school districts and has already kept a 15 percent budget cut from affecting districts with efforts like state-level furloughs.

The cuts will show up on this fiscal year's budget, said Dowd, and are expected to remain through next year's budget.

Still, Dowd thinks the district will not have to borrow money to cover the loss.

“If the cuts are as significant as I expect, then you as a board are going to have to look at the possibility of using a portion of our fund balance to help with the rest of this year, so just to keep that in mind,” she told board members. “We did add some to our fund balance this year which was good. But it's something we certainly can't keep doing on a year-after-year basis.”

The district was fortunate to face the more than $1 million cuts and not affect personnel, said Superintendent Bennie Bennett.

“We've been able to absorb those (cuts) without affecting personnel at all,” said Bennett. “There's not a lot of districts that can say that they have done that. I hear that all the time. They're already furloughing folks and making cutbacks at other departments