ELKINS — During Tuesday’s regular meeting at the Central Office, the Randolph County Board of Education received an update on its status with the state after reporting to the West Virginia Department of Education that it was unable to balance its budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

“Based on the last meeting and reaching the point where we did not feel we could balance the budget, I reached out to Uriah Cummings with the Department of Education,”  Brad Smith, Randolph County Schools’ treasurer and director of finance and purchasing, told the BOE during the meeting. “Uriah has asked me to budget a ‘negative budgetary reserve’ for what we fell short in balancing the budget, $434,388. Uriah said that they would continue to stay in communication with us and that we are in a critical fiscal position, and that we have to be aware of and take action to improve it. He also said that we will also have to monitor our cash and keep from going below zero dollars.”

In order to keep the county’s cash in the plus, Smith told the BOE that cuts would have to come from sources other than personnel.

“Uriah advised that we may look at cutting items such as county funded athletics, field trips, and other extracurricular activities in order to remain cash solid,” Smith said. “There is nothing we can do with personnel at this point.”

Smith said he was told that Randolph County Schools would likely be placed on the state’s watch list on July 1.

“Uriah was very clear that on July 1 he fully expects that we will be on the watch list,” Smith said. “The financial reporting will go into immediate effect, so there will be weekly and certainly monthly reporting that I have to do with the state department. And that’s ongoing until you come off the watch list.”

BOE member Sherri Collett asked Smith, “When you say on the watch list, does that mean there will be no one from the state here dictating what we are doing with the money? Is that correct?”  

Smith replied, “Within the finance department where Uriah is overseeing, he doesn’t know if anything bigger will come of any of this. He knows his department and how things work there. So I don’t anticipate they would be making our financial decisions.”

Smith said he’s hopeful that the county will still receive some funds for the Secure Rural Schools program.

“It’s still moving forward in DC, so it hasn’t stopped at this point, it hasn’t been shut down,” Smith said. “If that would be reauthorized, that helps us in the amount of $150,000. But we don’t anticipate hearing an answer about that until July. It is part of the President’s budget at this point, but we all know there’s a lot of negotiating going on and things go in and out. But at this point it is there, and we are very hopeful that that part stays.”

Smith told the Board that he would prepare a list of some items that could potentially be eliminated. 

“I will give you several different items and come July 1 if you say we don’t want to spend $40,000 here, we’d rather put toward this deficit that we’ve budgeted, then at that time the budget supplements and transfers that you get, would be going to transfer the budget in order to cover that,” he said. “I’m open to any suggestions and each meeting we can have a discussion. Anything can be run up the flagpole to see if we can potentially do it.”

The Board of Education will hold a special meeting on May 29 at the Central Office.