As you may recall from previous newsletters, NFV faces some financial challenges. When North Fayette and Valley merged, there were short-term incentives provided by the state in the way of additional funding for NFV. This additional funding has expired, and NFV has had to "Right-Size" our spending.
When talking about school budgets, there are many things that must be considered.
The first thing to remember, on average, schools spend about 80% of a school's General Fund is spent on staff. The General Fund money is directly generated by the number of students in a school. So the logic is with fewer students the school should need less staff. Most rural schools, including NFV, have seen declining enrollment for many years.
A second thing that has to be considered is categorical funds. These are funding streams that can ONLY be spent on specific areas. For example, the fund we buy school buses from cannot be used to pay staff. Another example is the HVAC project mentioned above. We cannot use those funds to pay for staff.
We have worked hard to get our district "Right-Sized" to match our budget. We will continue to keep fiscal responsibility a priority, while we keep high-quality education the top priority.
