“The heating oil use is a lot more than what was projected, and I mean a lot more,” said Keller at a school board meeting held on Oct. 10. “That is out of our control. It’s not bad math or rounding wrong, it just is what it is. We have to pay that.”
The school board hopes a large contingent of community members come out to support their decision to – yet again – ask for more money.
“We need new voices. We need to hear from others in our community,” said School Board Member Bertha Armstrong. “You may not be saying what people want to hear, but you say what you feel.”
Since the $2 million budget cuts to the school system in May, the Fluvanna County School Board has spent much of its time justifying how every penny is spent. But some aren’t satisfied with their explanations. Since the budget cuts to the school system in May, the Fluvanna County School Board has spent much of its time justifying how every penny is spent. But some, including some supervisors, aren’t satisfied with their explanations.
In August, the Board of Supervisors voted to do their own adversarial audit of the school board’s budget.
On Oct. 1 Robinson, Farmer, Cox and Associates began the audit with $35,000 of the cost funded by the taxpayers of Fluvanna. The audit will be presented to the public at the supervisors’ meeting.
The school board also received word this month that the Fluvanna Schools Efficiency Review done by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) and the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget has been officially set for 2014, if the General Assembly decides to fund it. According to the VDOE website, the objective of an efficiency review is to, “identify ways in which school divisions can realize cost savings in non-instructional areas in order to redirect those funds towards classroom activities.”
