Williamsburg-James City County Schools now has the necessary approval from the city and county to buy replacement school buses and upgraded technology with about $1.75 million in money leftover from last year’s budget.
City Council voted to provide $166,855 of its leftover funds last week. James City County’s Board of Supervisors approved its allocation of funds — $1.58 million — on Tuesday night.
The votes from the two boards clear the way for the schools to use $1,749,000 of a total of more than $3.8 million in end-of-year funds to purchase nine replacement school buses, as well as replacement laptop and desktop computers in the elementary schools.
The total cost of the school buses is $1.02 million, while the computers will cost almost $729,000.
City Council and the Board of Supervisors approved a combined $1.1 million less than WJCC requested, cutting out textbook adoption and digitalization, an assessment of the condition of all WJCC-owned buildings and a network upgrade to support increased wireless technology demands.
Under the city-county school contract, any balance remaining at the end of the district’s fiscal year rolls over into the local appropriation for the next year unless the WJCC School Board submits a spending plan for the funds to both municipal governments. The county annually provides 90.46 percent of WJCC schools’ budget, with the city contributing the remaining 9.54 percent.
Because the remaining $2 million in excess funds from fiscal year 2014, which ended June 30, will be used toward WJCC operating costs, it frees up $199,628 and $1,892,909 for the city and county, respectively, to use in other areas.
The returned funds will fill each municipality’s gap for revenue shortfalls in state sales taxes for education, as they are now expecting to receive less funds than initially projected, according to documents from both the city and county.
The excess funding is the result of two factors: WJCC spent about $2.17 million less than projected, and enrollment in September 2013 was 144 students higher than projected, leading to an increased appropriation of about $1.66 million, according to a memorandum from former WJCC Chief Financial Officer Terry Stone.
Stone attributes the decrease in expenditures to outside forces, like the price of electricity, vehicle fuel and heating fuel. There was also less spending for legal services and textbooks and workbooks than predicted.
Supervisor Kevin Onizuk (Jamestown) asked whether the approved funding for school bus replacement would be enough to maintain a safe and adequate fleet, and WJCC Senior Director for Operations Marcellus Snipes confirmed it would be.
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