After meeting every week in January, the Goochland School Board last night passed a balanced budget for fiscal year 2013. The vote was unanimous.

The budget assumes a $17,386,626 transfer from the county. The total operating fund expenditures and revenues balance out at $23,624,799.

“It’s been a long, difficult, gut-wrenching four weeks,” said school board chair Beth Hardy after the vote. Hardy emphasized that there could be further tweaks in the process going forward if more savings are found. She said the focus was on classrooms and students and establishing credibility with the new board of supervisors, which must approve the budget and appropriate the money for the transfer.

Along the way the school board began a reorganization of the schools, eliminating the directors of elementary and secondary education and adding a second assistant superintendent for operations position and a director of instruction.

Also eliminated were the enrichment and gifted specialist, the student services specialist and one of two assistant principals at Goochland High School.

Big savings were achieved by outsourcing all but five head custodians ($191,000) and factoring in a revised health plan and/or contribution strategy ($181,000).

Not all these changes were welcomed. During the public comment period Susan Gray presented the board with a petition with 300 signatures opposing the custodial outsourcing.

“The custodians are just as important as the superintendent,” said Gray.

Other savings come from reducing all 260-day employees to 253 days ($88,446).

Two furlough days are added back, adding $117,000 to the operating fund.

Other additions are a GHS library and media specialist ($58,490), more than $111,000 for the textbook matching fund, an
elementary special education teacher ($57,573),  math/English teacher for Goochland Middle School ($60,323).

Other additions included smaller amounts for lead teacher compensation, sheet music, band instruments and funds for robotics and Lego competitions.

Two new contingency funds, one for maintenance and one for instruction were also created.

The board also approved a Capital Improvement plan through 2019 to the tune of $32 million. The first item of which is to begin work on a walkway from the Specialty Center and upgrade the Goochland Elementary Communication System GES at a projected cost of $150,000.

The complete budget plus last night’s presentation are accessible on the schools Web site at https://sites.google.com/a/glnd.k12.va.us/sb-agendas/january-31-2012.