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PSS: $50M budget for FY06 far-fetched
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Posted on Apr 04 2005
Although the Babauta administration gave the Public School System a 22-percent increase in its fiscal year 2006 budget plan, education officials still have reservations that the $50 million earmarked for its operations and expenses would be approved.
“The problem is, where is the revenue going to come from?” said PSS finance director Richard Waldo.
Close to 50 percent or $106.9 million of the government’s $225 million budget proposal for FY 2006 would go to four agencies: Department of Public Health, Department of Public Safety, Department of Corrections, and PSS.
Waldo said that DPH and PSS are the two departments who have the largest budget requests for next fiscal year and the $8 million increase in the entire budget is simply not enough to fulfill the two agencies’ increased requirements.
Based on the budget narrative submitted by education officials to the Board of Education last month, the requested budget increased substantially to pay for the maintenance of school facilities that was not performed in prior years.
The report said the budget was appropriated based on student enrollment “at least equal to the 1992 appropriation based on expenditures per child.”
The report recalled that in 1992 the Legislature appropriated $30,923,404 for the 7,086 students enrolled in public schools, which constituted $4,264 per child; when multiplied over the projected FY06 enrollment of 11,726 students, this would equal $50 million.
PSS’ projection of enrollment for next fiscal year is based on current enrollment, which is 11,599, allowing for a very modest growth of slightly over 125 students. Student enrollment this year grew by over 550 students, said the report.
