District Officials: Student Attendance Critical this Week

While attendance is always a concern for Pasco County School District officials, it’s especially important that kids turn out for classes this week, officials say.

“The week of the 10^th through 14^th, attendance really counts,” said Summer Romagnoli, the school district’s spokeswoman. “We get funded for students that week.”

The district is already bracing for a funding cut from its original student enrollment projections. for the 2011-12 school year was down by 173 students and by the 20^th day, that number had dropped to 393 fewer students than projected, Romagnoli said.

“Our budget is based on the weighted full-time equivalent number,” Romagnoli said.

State and local funding are both tied to the number of students a school district has enrolled. That funding amounts to about $6,300 per student. The 20-day drop of 393 students adds up to more than $2.47 million lost if the numbers remain consistent this week.

More Budget Cuts in Store?

Pasco County School Board officials are already bracing for the possibility of further budget cuts. Earlier this year, they set a budget that was about than last year’s and they to make up for the funding loss.

School board chairwoman Joanne Hurley said the numbers are showing that the district’s moves during the budget process were the right ones to make. Even so, she expects further cuts to expenditures will have to be made.

“From the board’s perspective, it validates the approach we took when we were balancing our budget for the year,” she said. “We tried to make some hard choices. We’re finding that things are every bit as bad as we said they may be.”

While the board tried to cut enough to plan “for a rainy day,” she said they didn’t expect it to be quite this “stormy.”

No decisions on where to cut, what to cut or even whether cuts will be needed will come until the official numbers are in.

Even so, “we do (need to) tighten belts even further,” Hurley said.