Shortly after they were informed another $1 million might be cut from Dorchester District 2’s budget, the school board scheduled a workshop to discuss how to make up for what could soon be $7 million in budget cuts this year.
At Monday’s board meeting, Chief Financial Officer Allyson Duke told the school board she would soon provide them with proposals for dealing with the budget cuts.
District officials scheduled a Nov. 23 budget workshop, which will be held prior to a regularly scheduled board meeting, to discuss how to offset the shortfall.
Duke said last week – prior to Monday’s news that the state may cut another $1 million from the budget – that district officials would have to consider furloughs because the budget had been slashed $6 million. She said if furloughs were enforced, she hoped it would be for only one or two days.
The budget shortfall the district has seen this year follows $9 million in cuts last year and is attributed to a decline in both state revenues as well as a shortfall realized in local tax revenues.
During Monday’s forum for public comments, the Rev. Gralin Nix Hampton, who said he was representing an aspect of the faith community, urged officials to exhaust all options prior to furloughing employees.
“We base this strong request on the fact that we feel as it relates to the total community and maybe even society that professional educators are not compensated well enough as it is,” Hampton said. “We could not find any good reason for using furloughs or pay cuts. It affects morale and sometimes productivity so we wanted to at least go on record with the leaders of DD2.”
The budget workshop is set for Nov. 23 at 5 p.m. at the Dorchester District 2 offices, 102 Greenwave Blvd., Summerville. The workshop is open to the public.
In other news, prior to Monday’s board meeting, Dorchester District 2 officials were presented with an audit report review for the year that ended June 30. The district was found to be in a state of “reasonable financial condition,” according to accounting firm Greene Finney & Horton (GF&H).
The audit was an unqualified opinion from GF&H, confirming that the financial statements were prepared fairly.
Certified public accountant Bruce Illsley told district officials that the undesignated fund balance, which currently sits at $9.5 million or 6.8 percent of 2009 operating expenditures, is low.
“That’s getting bare bones,” Illsley said. “Nobody’s adding to their fund balance right now, but you want to keep that on your radar.”
General fund revenues increased about $400,000 over the previous year to $130.8 million, which was the product of $3.2 million in tax revenues offset by a $2.3 million decrease in state revenues and a $400,000 decrease in investment earnings, Illsley said.
General fund expenditures increased $11 million to $140 million primarily due to $11.7 million in higher salaries and benefits offset by a $1.1 million decrease in operations. The district’s expenditures remain $400,000 under budget, according to Illsley.

Contact Michael Tannebaum at 873-9424 ext. 215 or mtannebaum@journalscene.com