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Clovis school board to consider preliminary budget

CLOVIS — The Clovis Municipal Schools Board of Education on Tuesday will consider a preliminary budget for 2020-21 it anticipates won’t look anything like the final version.

The 5:30 p.m. meeting will be held online due to public health orders limiting mass gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The meeting is available at the link on the school board section of the clovis-schools.org website.

The budget is nearly $4 million more than last year’s $65.9 million budget, with a surplus of nearly $900,000 once the state equalization guarantee is factored in. Most of the increases would be seen in staff raises ($1.978 million) and benefits ($760,000), with other increases in instructional materials ($686,000), teacher mentorship ($251,553) and elementary physical education teachers ($240,000). The latter is partially funded by the state for the first time in more than a decade.

The catch? School districts across the state have built budgets largely based on what they were appropriated during the regular legislative session that adjourned right before oil and gas prices plummeted and the COVID-19 pandemic began.

A special legislative session is planned for June to review those appropriations.

CMS Superintendent Renee Russ has told The News the district did withdraw applications for the K-5+ program, and that it hopes to use federal coronavirus relief funds for alternative summer and after-school programming.

The district expects to absorb 10 to 15 fulltime positions through new staffing protocols, but Russ said, “it is too soon to know whether the absorption of these positions will be enough to offset anticipated reductions to our operational budget.”

Other items on the Tuesday agenda include:

• A request to allow administration to submit budget adjustment requests without board approval, to be used in instances awards may require action before the next board meeting. Any budget adjustment later turned down by the board will be voided in the system.

• Final approval of various personnel policies regarding sick leave, staff vacationing holidays.

• Introduction of policy revisions for bus driver and transportation employees to align with federal standards.

• Consideration of state bilingual multicultural education program funding applications for Clovis High School, CHS Freshman Academy, Marshall Middle School and La Casita and Lockwood elementaries.

• Consideration of curriculums for career and technical education for grades 8-12 and math for all grade levels.

 
 
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