Petersburg Pilot -

The Petersburg City School District Board approved a Fall budget revision that will bring more state money into the school.

“Our original budget projected an enrollment of 445 and our actual membership is 451,” PCSD Finance Director Karen Quitsland said. “Our foundation formula is based on this number and the majority of our state funding is based on that as well, so that plays a pretty big role in what our funding from the state is.”

Senate Bill 182 was pending at the time of budget submission and SB 182 has three parts to it which include pupil transportation, an increase in the Career and Technical Education, CTE and the increasing of the State's financial contribution in the foundation formula.

“We approached this budget conservatively,” Quitsland stated. “We only factored in two parts of the bill, the pupil transportation and the CTE factor.”

The governor did sign the bill which added $387,995 to the budget bringing the total to $5,848,176 to the foundation program.

State revenue sources for the PERS and TRS programs were also increased. TRS was increased $93,729 and PERS $39,663. These changes bring a total revenue increase to the school of $521,387 for a total of $7,381,996.

An increase in expenditures was also approved with this revision for the start-up of the new alternative program.

“We have included salaries and program start-up costs to the budget,” Quitsland stated. “Activity salaries for new extra duty contracts were also added in this revision.”

The change in salaries with benefits comes to $164,141 bringing the new total to $3,694,521.

Non-personnel changes in the budget include freshman computers, teaching supplies, curriculum adoption, technology and other miscellaneous needs for the district that come to $202,820 bringing the total to $3,971,136.

“We have also added an increase for a technology support staff position,” Quitsland said. “Along with this position, there has been an increase in technology supplies as well. There is always a need for more technology. There are some things that make this district run that depend on the technology department and the need is there for more servers and more equipment.”

A total of $10,000 was added for technology supplies to bring the new total to $11,700.

“The Stedman Elementary School renovation project was added into our Capital Projects but additional funds were needed for repairs in the siding,” Quitsland stated.

An amount of $60,000 was added to the budget for the elementary siding project.