Superintendent Dr. Jim Benfield and his staff are taking a look at the budget which will be offered up soon, and he talked about the priority process that Yadkin County Schools goes through at this time of year.

“On the process of it we don’t have any decisions about the money. We’ve got a preliminary allotment in February and March in the state. What we do is we take our learning priorities that we’ve established and it’s like any budget process, I guess, we try to budget our top priorities.

“We consider what local money we get and federal money and state and then try to budget our priorities. Hopefully we will have enough we don’t have to cut. In these days and times it seems like you never have enough money. Most districts don’t. So we’ll have to do some reductions.

” The Yadkin County Board of Commissioners has already learned that it may itself have a shortfall of about $4 million.

“So what we try to do is we try to go back and ask ourselves can we reduce something and not lower quality. If we can do that, we’ll try to go there. We do that and as much as possible we try to stay away from the classrooms. We can’t always do it. We try to do that.

“If we can find a better way to do business or a more efficient way, we do reductions there. That’s the process that we use,” he said.

The central office staff tries to work with the administrators before the budget, according to Benfield, so that when you “get to the heat of the battle” the priorities are already established.

“That’s the way we do it. We do it as a team. I do have the responsibility to recommend to the board,” he added. “That’s public. The first persons to get it out of our team will be the board, and I hope to do that at the May meeting.

” What are the priorities?

“We have technology, infrastructure, K-3 reading, writing, and then it goes to other core areas like the math and the English and language arts and social studies,” he said. “This is the third year we’ve done it. It gets tighter every year.” There is science and history too, plus performing arts, global languages and visual arts plus career tech education and health education. Pre-school readiness is a priority with high value.

"Just because they are on different levels doesn't mean they are not important," said the superintendent.

He commented on the Yadkin Success Academy and the performance levels of local schools. All schools made annual evaluation progress last year except for the Success Academy because the nature of the alternative learning there. "We hope that they make it this year," he said. "We have some on different levels of assistance. They are coming out of it."

There are 6,000 students in the school system. What about state funding this year?

“We anticipate that we are going to be cut,” he said. “We don’t know how much yet.”

What is it like building a budget?

“It’s always frustrating with any budget,” Benfield said. “You always have more needs than you have money, whether it is a short year or with new money. It’s a good thing in one sense. It makes you think about your priorities, and it makes you think about how you’re going to do your job and what you’re trying to accomplish for next year and the year ahead. That part’s good.

“You never have enough to do what you want to do. That’s the way it is no matter how much you have. There’s always more things you need to do than you can get done. It’s not a bad process. It’s just a frustrating thing especially when you’re having to reduce the budget. What we’re trying to figure out is how to offer the same things at less cost. To a certain extent it’s healthy, but when it gets down to cutting essential things that children need, it’s not healthy.

” Will any positions be lost?

“I don’t know that yet,” he responded. “I think there will be some positions, but I don’t know about people. Once I get the budget done and give it to the board, I can tell you everything about it. Right now we haven’t made decisions. We’ve got scenarios up. We have to meet again with the administrative team.

“I honestly don’t know what we’re going to cut this year if anything,” he said. “I do know we’re going to have less money. Last year the federal money came through and saved us. We had a lot more cuts last year. You always have those things that can happen too.”

He does not expect federal cuts, only minor changes.

"I think he biggest challenge we have is viewing that learning is something that virtually all students can learn at a high level and tasking ourselves to make sure that happens," he said. "It really doesn't have anything to do with money, but with how we look at it. I think our biggest challenge is how we train ourselves and how we continue to learn ourselves. I think that's the biggest challenge I see in education, believing that and getting all of us to work together