The Board of Education approved its budget development calendar for the 2014-15 fiscal year at its meeting on Tuesday, October 1.

According to the draft of the budget calendar, Interim Superintendent of Schools John Reed will present the proposed budget to the school board for analysis during a meeting scheduled for January 21. The school board will deliberate and vote for its budget by a scheduled February 6 meeting, before the budget is sent before the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council before going out to referendum on April 22.

Dr Reed told the school board he is working on the budget differently this year. The practice in the past has been to have the administrators evaluate individual school budgets, then pass those on to the superintendent for assessment. Instead, Dr Reed said he plans to have school administrators work together to prepare a budget proposal. Dr Reed also said he will not tell the administrators how many positions are needed at each school, but will leave that up to the administrators to determine based on enrollment.

In preparing the school board for upcoming 2014-15 budget deliberations, Dr Reed also said he hopes the school board will work with representatives of the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council.

“I really believe that the way to public accountability and credibility is for us to be seen making the difficult decisions,” said Dr Reed, “and if there is a consensus of the board that you think is a reasonable approach, I’m anxious to have us consider engaging people like the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council proactively in your thoughts as opposed to just giving them a general inquiry.”

The school board unanimously approved the 2014-15 budget calendar as presented by Dr Reed.