School budget $81 million
Athletic programs being cut

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The county public school system will be operating on a budget of $81.2 million for the next fiscal year.

The new budget, which was approved by the Gallup-McKinley County School Board Monday, is about $9 million dollars more than the one that the district is operating on this year.

The biggest chunk of that extra $9 million is for the capital outlay fund ($6.1 million).

Practically everything is going up next year, from the amount paid to teachers ($42.8 million to $43.2 million) to food services ($119,425 to $146,350).

The only three areas that have a decrease set for next year are athletics ($1.3 million to $1.25 million), non-instructional student expenses ($242,045 to $214,300) and community services ($40,715 to $18,642).

Most of the employees in the district are getting a 1.25 percent raise, which was pretty well covered by extra funding from the state.

The biggest expense for the district is still teachers and instructional support, which takes up more than 87 percent of the entire budget.

Some other figures gleaned from the budget reports submitted by John Samford, the assistant superintendent for financial services, were:

• Salaries and benefits and fixed costs make up 95.98 percent of the operational budget.
  
  
• Base salary for teachers next year $30,000.
  
  
• The average salary paid for teachers during this fiscal year $37,708.
  
  
• Gallup's rank among all of the school district in the state for returning teacher salaries 72.
  
  
• Percentage of the certified staff with a master's degree or better 50.02.
  
  
• The two biggest sources of revenue for the district continue to be state grants ($53.1 million) and the federal impact aid ($25.1 million).