by Courtney Price

LINCOLNTON – School leaders will give a first glance at the coming year’s budget at a Board of Education meeting Monday at 6 p.m., April 16.

The Budget and Finance Committee will hear from Steve Zickefoose, assistant superintendent for business, about the state budget’s effect on schools next year.

Superintendents from across the state met with the state board on April 3.

“The Board of Education wanted to get a sense of the impact of the budget cuts over the last several years,” Lincoln County Superintendent Sherry Hoyle said. “So when they’re looking at budget proposals, they’ll have an idea of how it affected us.”

Hoyle said the meeting gave districts a voice. Reeves McGlohon and Mark Edwards, superintendents from Gaston and Mooresville Graded schools respectively, represented the region.

Hoyle said the meeting was valuable.

“In some areas, they’re hearing us,” she said.

Last year the state pushed the required school year from 180 to 185 days.

“But they’re giving us flexibility,” Hoyle said. “We were granted a waiver, and those five days will be used for professional development days.”

But ultimately, Zickefoose said, the N.C. General Assembly makes school budget decisions.

“The General Assembly passed a two-year budget last year, and since this is the second year, a lot less time will be spent on the budget,” he said. “They’ll make some minor changes based on the revenues they took in this year.”

Zickefoose said he expects the N.C. Department of Instruction to present a budget request to the General Assembly in May.

“We’ve pretty much been told what our budget will be,” he said.

Hoyle said while it wasn’t exactly a positive, she was relieved to hear some familiar issues.

“Across the presentations there were some common threads,” she said. “You could tell that the cuts are impacting budgets all across the state.”