County schools faring better than most

By Staff
Slade Gilmer
With many school systems in northwest Alabama struggling to make ends meet and cutting jobs across the board because of prorated budgets, the Franklin County and Russellville City School systems are finding themselves the exception to the rule.
According to Franklin County Board of Education Superintendent Gary Williams, the Franklin County schools system will lose only two teaching units.
"We've been working on (saving units) the past two or three years," Williams said.
While many teachers were not renewed at the end of the school year, Williams says most will be back.
"We will have to do some transferring and some re-arranging," Williams said, "but we'll be calling almost all of (the non-renewed teachers) back."
While two teaching units will be lost, the county will only lose one teacher. After a teacher in the system announced her retirement, the Franklin County Board of Education elected to eliminate that unit rather than hire someone in that position.
Russellville City Schools Superintendent Don Cox says the system will lose three teaching units and a custodian, which is much fewer than originally feared.
"We were able to do that because of the Federal Stabilization funds," Cox said.
Cox added that a number of teachers announcing their retirement this year allowed the system to cut fewer of their teaching units.
Cox did say, however, that there have been cuts in other places, thanks to the prorated state budget.
"What's devastating is our operating funds," Cox said. "They've cut our professional development funds, our library funds, and reduced textbooks from $75 (per student) to $17 (per student)."
Cox also said the Russellville Board of Education has gone to working four-day weeks during the summer to cut down on utility costs.
Another reason for some of the funding cuts, according to Cox, was a decision by the city council in 2006 that capped local funding for the schools at $1 million. Cox said that from 2006-09, the schools lost nearly $1.5 million.
"We've basically eliminated all local units," Cox said.
However, Cox remained hopeful that a resolution passed by the city council to give the schools 38 percent of a 3-cent sales tax will help offset the cuts caused by the prorated budget.