The Carroll County school board unanimously approved last night a nearly $330 million operating budget for the 2009 fiscal year.
The board approved the budget after a second public hearing at Westminster High School, adding several positions for testing coordinators at each high school and eliminating some school-based accountant positions to allow for additional teachers to reduce high school class sizes.
With those changes, the spending plan contains about $21 million more than the current operating budget and takes into account an estimated $5 million shortfall expected as a result of the special legislative session that reduced state education funding.
"We do need to have an organized plan for getting the class sizes down," said board member Jeffrey L. Morse, who moved to add nine more teachers to the seven budgeted for in the proposed spending plan to reduce high school class sizes.
To avoid increasing the overall budget, Morse suggested replacing some of the 22 1/2 school-based accounting positions in the plan with more new teachers. "My priority is 100 percent getting our class sizes in order. I think that needs to be done before we worry about school-based accountants," he said.
Board President Cynthia L. Foley and Vice President Barbara Shreeve supported the motion.
Member Patricia Gadberry said she would like a school-based accountant at each high school, at a minimum.
The plan also includes more than 130 new positions and more spending for utilities, student transportation and worker benefits.
School officials reached tentative agreements with bargaining groups for step and cost-of-living increases before yesterday's meeting, an item that was not included in the original proposal, Superintendent Charles I. Ecker said. That would add about $4.3 million to the budget, Ecker said.
Ecker requested about $2.4 million for more than 30 "intervention" positions, such as high school assessment support teachers, and elementary school math resource and gifted-and-talented resource teachers.
The budget also seeks about $1 million for some other positions, including several special-education clerks. After a failed attempt to replace seven HSA support teachers with testing coordinators, Foley sought to add the positions, in an effort to alleviate the burden on high school guidance counselors. The positions, which would cost about $483,500, were included, although member Gary Bauer opposed the move.
"I was hoping not to have to do that this year because times are tough," Foley said of the addition. But "we need to take this burden of testing away from them," she said, allowing counselors to focus on their primary job.
"The time has come that we need some kind of testing coordinator in our high schools," Shreeve said. And despite not wanting to increase spending, she said, "we need to ask for what we really feel that we need."
arin.gencer@baltsun.com