By JESSA PEASE / Staff Writer

PELHAM— The Board of Education approved the 2015-2016 budget for Pelham City Schools after a presentation by Superintendent Dr. Scott Coefield at the board of education meeting Aug. 31. The budget leaves Pelham City Schools with a surplus of $1,598,872 with Pelham’s overall revenue of $20.3 million outweighing its annual cost of $18.7 million.

“The challenge that I think we’ve had from day one is how to balance everything in what we inherited,” said Board of Education President Rick Rhoades. “I think that what we’ve found was a very inadequate technology system, buildings that needed massive repairs in some places…extra curricular programs that, in my opinion, were really struggling.”

Rhoades explained that a lot of those costs associated with the extra curricular activities were on parents and the community members. Those issues, along with the technology and upgrades to the schools, are being rectified by the school system.

Highlights of the budget include $1 million for technology, $120,00 to the curriculum, $6.14 million for staffing, $1.4 million for facilities and operations and $7.42 million for facilities, debt and projects.

“A lot of this money is money that had to go into certain areas that, frankly, it would have been nice to put more money into things like teacher salaries immediately,” Rhoades said. “There were just issues that had to be dealt with that took monies to take care of.”

Last year, Pelham ended FY 2014 with $1,248,022 in its reserves. Coefield said they anticipate ending FY 2015 with $3.5 million in the reserves and ending FY 2016 with $5 million.

“Right now, we are not in the worst place possible, and in order for us to continue, or hopefully stay, as firm financially as we are for next year, we need to be careful about our projects and our people,” said board member Dr. Barbara Regan. “Whatever we do, if we watch the budget carefully, I think we will continue to not have red at the bottom of each column. We have to do that very cautiously.”

The next regularly scheduled Pelham City Schools Board of Education meeting will be Sept. 28 at 6:30 p.m.