Rock Hill School Board Approves $118.4 Million Budget

The Rock Hill School Board approved a $118.4 million dollar budget for the 2010-11 school year. This will be a balanced budget if the charter school does not open. If it does open, a decision will be made later if there will be a reduction in force to balance the budget. The budget requires a 3.5 mil tax increase for businesses. The actual increase, because of a reduction in capital debt, would be 1.7 mils. Homeowners would see a slight decrease in taxes because of the capital debt reduction. The vote to approve was 7-0.

The board voted to suspend its fund reserve policy to allow for the balance to drop below the minimum established in policy. This was done to pay for the shortage in revenue for the 2009-10 school year. Vote was 7-0.

In other action, (all 7-0 votes) the board approved; the hiring of Anthony Cox as the new Associate Superintendent of  Administrative Services; the consent agenda (including the elimination of regular July board meetings); several policies for second reading (GBI, KHC, BEDB, KHE, JICJ) and; policy JRA for first reading.  An interesting comment - policy JICJ (cell phone) is not working anywhere and it is doubtful the revisions will help. In fact, it may be better to have a policy which would require cell phones to be visible and punish the offenders. Why? with policies currently in place - this is going on - 65% of students take cell phones to school where they are completely banned,  58% of students admit to sending text messages during class where phones are banned (43% say they text at least once a day or more), 25% of students admit to making or receiving a call during class time.