Washburn school board meets for annual meeting
By Adam Thomas, BHG News Service
The Washburn School Board met at their annual meeting this month for discussion over a deluge of detailed financial reports. Of course, one does not tackle nuanced numbers on an empty stomach, so the meeting commenced only after gathering beforehand for a morale boosting steak and shrimp supper. The evening began with an overview of the annual financial report, a categorical breakdown of all revenue and expenses that went though the Washburn school district in the past year. The district had combined revenue of nearly 3.2 million dollars for the 2008-2009 school year, of which approximately 2.4 million went to expenditures at an average cost per pupil around $7,900. An ending balance of $807,730 will be carried over into the 2009-2010 budget. After briefly covering a few supplemental reports, Superintendent Brad Rinas presented a new type of report summarizing the federal program budgets. "The word coming from Washington D.C. is transparency, everything has to be accounted for penny for penny," he said, "So I’m initiating this as an end of year report." In explaining the federal programs summary, Rinas gave some insight into the future budgets of these programs: "I learned at our summer conference that there is apparently going to be another blast of Title II money, just like the Title I money we received for next year, it sounds like we are going to get another shot of Title II money as well." He continued, "Now, if we’ll have a use for all that, I don’t know; but we’ll look at a lot of different things… I have some pretty grand plans for professional development and I’m hoping those are things we can do."
