Classes resume two months from now and Beeville trustees still don’t know exactly how much revenue the state will send their way for the upcoming school year.

The school board reviewed a preliminary budget on Monday, June 29.

That draft spending plan, based on estimates and revenue projections, predicts that the school district will have $24.7 million to spend between Sept. 1, 2009, and Aug. 30, 2010, and expenses of $25.8 million, a shortfall of just over $1 million.

The $24.7 million in revenue includes just over $1 million in federal economic stimulus money that the state is allocating toward teacher pay raises — if it is allowed by Congress.

Budget planners expect to know that by July 15.

If the economic stimulus can be used for teacher pay raises, school trustees seemed to agree that they wanted to include local funds to pay for cost of living increases for all the other employees, which will increase expenses substantially.

Revenues

Budget planners foresee the school district receiving $24,748,121 in state and local revenue for the 2009-2010 school year.

BISD Superintendent Dr. John Hardwick Jr. said he is unsure at this point if the state will use the $1.9 billion surplus for teacher pay raises if the federal government nixes economic stimulus funds for that purpose.

It may be that no employee receives a pay raise this coming school year.

Expenses

The preliminary budget calls for the school district to spend $24,899,56 to maintain and operate schools next year.

However, budget planners want to include another $937,591 in additional costs — $450,716 in “additional items needed” to get through the school year and another $486,875 to replace personnel, programs and items cut from the 2008-09 budget last year when the tax rate election failed.

Of the $450,716,591 in additional items needed, $54,000 is earmarked for new band uniforms, $66,000 will be spent on projects once financed through fundraisers and $50,000 will be set aside for future capital improvement projects.

Of the $486,875 in budget expenses allocated to replace personnel, programs and items cut out of last year’s budget, $80,000 is earmarked for a new school bus that wasn’t purchased last year, $32,000 for transportation costs cut from the 2008-2009 budget. Other budget items that need to be replaced include $10,500 in districtwide food costs, $75,000 in districtwide electricity costs, $165,000 to replace personnel computers, $8,882 for Moreno Middle School supplies, $30,000 for substitute pay, $50,000 in maintenance costs, and $25,493 in costs for the Learning Resource Center.

Hardwick said Beeville public schools are among the bottom 10 percent of districts statewide when it comes to state funding.