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Sornberger talks ROWVA Finances

ROWVA has done very well with finances and haven’t accepted early tax money. This year, however, ROWVA did have some early tax money come in – with $300,000 in the education fund. Sornberger tells WGIL, he reminds people that if he gets that money during May or June of 2018, he can’t budget it for fiscal year 2019. “When you look at our budget for this year, we’re going to show somewhere around a $400,000 deficit,” Sornberger said. “It’s not because we don’t have the money. The money is in the bank. It’s just that I can’t take that money that I’ve already put in the bank and then budget it again for revenue. So that’s our gap. That’s something that we’re going to explain tonight (8/20). If I had my $300,000 that’s in the Ed Fund in the right fiscal year – we’re good.” Sornberger says normally, he budgets “worst case scenario” for expenditures, and tries to be exact as possible with revenues – to avoid putting out a “not true picture”.

In June it was announced that area school districts within Regional Office of Education #33 were losing out on a large portion of funding for early childhood education. Some local districts were on the verge of cutting the program. After making a trip to Chicago with area superintendents, ROE Superintendent Jodi Scott was able to secure $930,000 in early childhood programs and $850,000 in preschool programs. Sornberger said ROWVA is looking for a pre-K teacher, and they’re running the program today. “It’s exciting that that came back around you got to give Jodi Scott and the ROE some props for that,” he said. “She went in a battled for us pretty hard and got us money so we can run our program. I think we’ll ultimately run our program at somewhat of a loss, but it’s just the idea that we can get our kids into a full-day program and the board of education sees the benefit so we’re going to go at it. We’re going to run it today (8/20) and we’ll see how it goes.”

Projects for ROWVA High School includes a new, completed entryway that is handicap-accessible, a new gym floor, and a redone principal’s office. Administration is currently working with the ROWVA Schools Foundation to replace and renew the high school chem lab. The Foundation donated $80,000 towards the project and administration along with 26 local farmers applied for and received a Monsanto Grant worth $10,000 for the project as well.

 

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