Claremore School Board working toward balanced budget

Reprinted with permission from the Claremore Progress. This article originally appeared on Jun 21, 2016. Support local journalism with a subscription or a day pass for $1.99 :)

Claremore Public Schools will be absorbing administrative costs and 10 teacher positions in the coming school year in an effort to create a balanced budget.

While state lawmakers did not reduce the budget for education this year, Oklahoma schools are still struggling to work with budgets that have been severely cut annually since 2009.

“I have been doing this for over 25 years and this is the worst I have seen it,” said Superintendent Michael McClaren. “I do not like it any better than anyone else. I want to have money for the classrooms. People say, ‘well what kind of cuts have you made,’ and if you look at any general fund support at any of our school sites, that has been reduced significantly.”

The general fund has been reduced from $17,000 to $4,000 since 2011. The general fund helps teachers at the various buildings purchase classroom support materials such as pens, pencils and paper.

“It is more burden on teachers to buy supplies. There are activity funds they can access, but many teachers go without,” McClaren said. “Teachers pay for a lot of expenses just for their classroom, I know that, and I would like to make sure they do not have to, but this is a very severe time.”

Last year, Claremore High School and the junior high did not receive any general fund support.

“We look at the numbers and we are trying to see what we can cut and what we can reduce,” McClaren said.

Currently the fund balance, which helps the school operate the first six weeks of classes, is about $1.5 million. It covers the cost of payroll and other expenses until state aid arrives.

An impact of between $200,000 and $800,000 can be expected on the fund balance for this year. McClaren is working to reduce that impact as much as possible.

Since 2009, state funding has been reduced by $200 per student every year.

The final budget will be approved in late October or early November.

The school board is also still working to fill a vacant seat on the board and applications are still being accepted from individuals who live near the Westside Elementary School area.

The vacant seat is scheduled to be filled next month.