The Cullman City School System passed its Fiscal Year 2019 budget Thursday night, and next year’s budget isn’t much different from last year’s.

Cullman City Schools Chief School Finance Officer Russell Raney presented the budget to the Cullman City School Board during a hearing that was held before the board’s regular meeting, and said the biggest change in it is the statewide pay raise that went into effect this year.

“The budget is fairly flat from last year,” he said. “There’s a 3.1 percent increase in revenues and a 3 percent increase in expenses, but the bulk of that is the 2.5 percent pay raise from the state.”

Raney said the budget includes one more teacher unit than last year’s, for a total of 193 teacher units for the year, along with five principals, five assistant principals, seven counselors and five media specialists.

There will be around eight locally-funded personnel units, while the rest are funded from state or federal funds, and the system has been trying to reduce the number of locally funded units over the last several years, Raney said.

“One of the things that we’ve really worked on for the last 10 years or so is reducing the number of locally-funded units,” he said. “Around 10 years ago, we were up to close to 20 locally funded units, and now we’re at just a little more than eight.”

As the system’s enrollment has increased over the years, the system has received more funding for teacher units, and most of those units have been used to replace the locally-funded ones, which has freed up more local money to be spent on capital projects or technology initiatives.

“That’s pretty much as low as we’re going to get as far as local units,” he said. “And we’ve really worked hard to get that into a manageable number.”

The budget also includes $650,000 in funding that is sent to the capital project fund, of which $300,000 is set aside to go towards the system’s new building/construction fund, $50,000 is set aside for the turf replacement fund and $50,000 is for the roof replacement/repair fund.

The other $250,000 is set aside for other planned capital projects, and some of those projects are the continued renovation of the floors in East and West Elementary Schools and a new HVAC system in the high school gym, Raney said.

He said has been an increase in revenue from local taxes over the last few years, and that meant that the system was able to recently pay for 600 Chromebooks outright instead of having to have a lease for them, and next year’s budget has its own line item for purchases that are part of the system’s 1:1 student device initiative.

That means that the system won’t be going into debt for those purchase in the coming years, and the debt on the previous two leases should be paid off in the next few years, and that money can be used for other things like capital projects, Raney said.

“It was a necessity for us to lease those for a while when we first got into it, because we just didn’t have the capital to just write a check,” he said. “We’re now to the point where there’s a $250,000 line item in the general fund for technology purchases every year, outside of the regular technology budget.”

In other business, the board:

• Approved August 2018 payroll of $1,946,492.82, invoices paid of $1,350,289.29, financial statements and bank reconciliations.
• Approved the following Head Start items: Expenditures report for August 2018, Health/Nutrition/Disabilities/Enrollment report for August 2018, Program Information Report for 2017-18.
• Gave permission to surplus two 6×8 soccer goals and two 7×21 goals from Cullman High School.
• Gave permission to salvage a wheelchair in disrepair from West Elementary School.
• Gave permission  for the CHS Competition Dance Team to travel to Orlando, Fla. to participate in the United Dance Association Nation Competition at Disney World on Feb. 1-5, 2019.
• Gave permission for FCCLA to travel to Louisville, Ky. to the FCCLA National Leadership Conference from Nov. 8-11.
• Gave permission for the CHS mythology class to travel to Memphis, Tenn. to visit the Memphis Zoo, Pyramid and Obelisk on Nov. 27.
• Gave permission for the Girls Soccer team to attend the Smokey Mountain Cup in Gatlinburg, Tenn. during Spring Break, March 28-31, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with Allied Behavioral Concepts, Inc. to provide consultant/behavioral support services beginning Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2019.
• Gave permission to enter into an interagency agreement with WellStone, Inc. to provide mental health treatment services for students from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with Bridges Behavior Therapy and Consulting to provide behavior analytic services beginning Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with ENT Associates of Alabama, Inc. to provide special education audiological services from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with Brooks’ Place to provide mental health services for Cullman City School beginning Oct. 1 and ending Sept. 30, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with Beth Wooten to provide auditory verbal therapy/mentor services beginning Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2019 (Special Education Funds).
• Gave permission to contract with Dr. Bryan Boozer to provide special education vision services from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with Romana Edwards to provide consultation, mobility and orientation services for visually impaired students beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019 (IDEA Funds).
• Gave permission to contract with Susan Evans to provide special education evaluations beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019 (general fund).
• Gave permission to contract with Susan Evans to provide homebound instruction beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019 (general fund source).
• Gave permission to contract with Sue Melvin to provide homebound instruction beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019 (general fund source).
• Gave permission to contract with Danielle Taylor to provide homebound instruction beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019 (general fund source).
• Gave permission to contract with Kelly Thrasher to provide homebound instruction beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019 (general fund source).
• Gave permission to contract with Sharon Kane to provide homebound instruction beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019 (general fund source).
• Gave permission to contract with Sara McCutcheon to provide homebound instruction beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019 (general fund source).
• Gave permission to contract with Jackie Kinney to assist/consult the Federal Programs Coordinator beginning Sept. 1 through Oct. 30, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with Patrick Bates to provide high-level server support as well as Microsoft SQL support as needed beginning Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with Sharon Drake to assist with various technology projects and assist the Technology Integration Specialist in training teachers beginning Sept. 1 through Aug. 31, 2019.
• Gave permission to contract with the following mentors for teachers pursuing NBPTS certification: Courtney Waters and Lori Andrews.
• Gave permission to contract with Diane Law to provide secretarial and receptionist duties as needed beginning Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2019 (amended contract).
• Gave permission to contract with Jacob Brown for seeding the soccer field ($1,000 paid by CHS soccer funds).
• Gave permission to contract with Brandon Dingler for soccer field maintenance ($2,000 paid by CHS soccer funds).
• Approved Cullman City Head Start Policy Council Bylaws.
• Approved the following personnel considerations
• Resignation
• Cassie Brooks, instructional assistant/bookkeeper at Cullman High School, effective Aug. 22.
• Transfer
• Joy Kilgo, transfer from secretary/bookkeeper at CCPS to secretary/bookkeeper at CHS, effective Oct. 15.
• Employments
• Katie Lindsey, four-hour CNP worker at Cullman Middle School, effective Aug. 3.
• Kim Dunn, temporary custodian at CMS (to fill a leave of absence), beginning approximately Sept. 21.
• Correction of employment hours
• Janie Flynn Peek, instructional assistant at CHS.
• William David Hannah, instructional assistant at CHS.
• 2018-19 Athletic and Band Supplement Schedule.
• 2018-19 Head Coach/Band Director Contracts.
• 2018-19 Technology Supplements.
• Supplements
• Johnnny Junior Heaton, $250 to drive band equipment truck to away events (paid by band boosters).
• John Sisk, $250 to drive band equipment truck to away events (paid by band boosters).
• The Cullman City School Board will next meet on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 5 p.m. in the Central Office Board Room.