The highly controversial Anne Arundel County schools budget request has been tabled to address an accounting change.
An outside auditor examining the schools? budget deemed $3 million for a new payroll system ? which itself has sparked debate among county leaders ? earmarked for fiscal 2008 should actually come from fiscal 2007, which ended June 30.
The school system now has to refashion both the fiscal 2007 and 2008 budgets to accommodate the accounting change.
“It won?t put the whole budget in the red. … I can guarantee that,” Assistant Schools Superintendent Greg Nourse said. “We just have to make some adjustments.”
The school system had planned on asking County Executive John R. Leopold for $2 million, mostly to pay unexpected electricity costs, and asking the County Council to shift around $13 million in the budget.
The money freed up in the fiscal 2008 budget could go to address the electricity issue, Nourse said.
The request would have gone before the council Wednesday during a special session ? the council had to act fast, otherwise the request would have been automatically enacted before the next scheduled meeting.
That session is now canceled, according to the county?s Web site, and a new hearing will likely happen in September, Nourse said. The heated debate that may have occurred during the special session could lose its bite.
“I hope this is the start of a better working relationship and better communication,” Councilman Josh Cohen, D-Annapolis, said Sunday.
Part of the $13 million shifting request included using surplus money in the health care insurance fund, which has not stood well with the council since it first saw the request this month.
There are also questions about leaving 50 teaching positions vacant, cutting 15 teaching positions and salary increases in administration.
