GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The Green Bay Area Public School District is set to receive about $2.8 million as the governor has directed federal coronavirus relief money to schools across the state.
“This couldn’t come at a better time here as we close out the calendar year and get ready for the start of second semester,” said Green Bay Schools Superintendent Stephen Murley.
Murley says the district has been struggling a bit financially this year for a number of reasons, and the extra funding will be extraordinarily beneficial.
“The state froze our spending budget over the biennial budget, so that meant no new dollars for us from a funding standpoint. Kind of a collateral piece to that is we saw a slight decline in enrollment, and we’re funded on a per-pupil basis,” Murley told WTAQ News. “Essentially what happened when the state did that, was they set up a structural deficit. So our planned expenses for this school year were greater than our revenue.”
There are two main places in the budget that Murley says have already exceeded their budgeted amounts – finding and paying long-term substitutes and filling stipends for current teachers who have to sacrifice prep hours to cover for their colleagues.
“As we’ve worked to make sure we’ve got qualified people in front of the kids, we’ve had to hire more long-term substitute teachers than we have in the past,” Murley said.
However, that’s not an expense the district expects to see as a recurring issue.
“We’re really hoping I keep knocking on wood that we’re going to come to this pandemic and we expected as we do that the need for these types of substitute staff members is going to decrease,” Murley said. “If we’re able to use these funds to fill some of those gaps in our current budget, then that gives us some relief for next year…if we’re able to forestall that budget gap this year with these dollars, that puts us in a much better position for developing our budget for next year.”
Just over 80% of the district’s budget goes towards staffing. Murley says most of the money the district expends goes to a person, whether that’s a teacher, paraprofessional, custodian, food service employee, or other employee.
