By Erin Schmitt

Henderson County school officials are waiting for the rest of the puzzle pieces to fall in place as they put together a tentative budget for 2016-17.

One large missing piece is whether Gov. Matt Bevin's proposed state budget, which would cut the Kentucky Department of Education's funding by $72 million over the next two years, is approved by the General Assembly.

Cindy Cloutier, the district's finance director, has been planning budget work sessions to start the task of creating a tentative budget for the 2016-17 school year. The budget must be passed by May 30.

Cloutier has said that budget expenditures are on track, Superintendent Marganna Stanley shared with the school board at a recent work session.

What concerns schools officials are the revenues coming in — or rather the lack of revenues that may come in.

It's unclear whether the governor's state budget, and the proposed cuts, will be passed. "If that's the case we have to plan for maximum reductions, there's just not a choice," said Stanley.

As it is, school officials are looking at areas that will significantly impact planning and budget due to the lack of projected revenue coming in if the governor's state budget passes.

Preschool services funding statewide would receive $4 million less each biennium. Cloutier has put together spreadsheets for the administrative team to study to take a close look at the allocations used to run the Early Learning Center.

The governor's proposed budget would reduce locally operated Career and Technology Education funding by $1 million. This would impact about 42 or 43 centers across Kentucky, including Henderson's.

Stanley said there would also be reduced funding for professional development, safe schools and the gifted and talented program. School officials also plan to take a close look at spending at the alternative school.

"The Family Resource Centers would take a large hit for just the remainder of this year," she said. "That would be about $26,000."

The following year it would be an additional $53,000, and the next year the same amount.

School officials are also looking closely at SEEK money. The Support Education Excellence in Kentucky funding program is a formula-driven allocation of state provided funds to local school districts.

In other business:

Geothermal test wall: MidSouth Geothermal's proposal for a geothermal test wall was approved in the amount of $16,500. The test is being conducted for the Spottsville Elementary project.

Bend Gate: The board approved a change order for a floor replacing project at Bend Gate Elementary School at a cost of $2,116.

Maintenance: Steve Steiner, assistant superintendent of district relations and operations, said his team has been strategically looking at what improvements should be done in regards to maintaining schools. The three areas of focus they keyed into were energy efficiency, safety and pressing needs, and aging equipment.

Installing LED lighting at all of the schools, except for Spottsville and Jefferson which are slated to be replaced, would benefit schools districtwide and save on energy costs, he said.

Gifted and talented: A committee was formed to evaluate gifted and talented education, in part to look at reducing the program's costs. They have been meeting at least once a month since August.

The program has five people — two at the elementary schools, two at the middle schools and one at the high schools. The committee proposed three options: keeping a staff of five, reducing it to four people, or just three.

The school board discussed the option of leaving the staff at five people, but the person at Henderson County High School would also double as the music teacher for the newly proposed school-within-a-school concept called School of Fine Arts.

Technology: The district's devices to technician ratio is somewhat out of balance compared to school systems statewide, said Director of Technology Brian Bailey. There are 841 devices per technician compared to the state average of between 500-600.

To get into a balance of about 588 to 1, Bailey proposed hiring two microcomputer specialist positions as soon as possible and creating a network administrative position for the next school year. The first two positions wouldn't impact the general fund because there's money in the technology budget and the other could be funded through the Kentucky Education Technology Systems project.