At the request of Superintendent John Zauner, Carroll County Board of Education members Monday agreed to cut the number of furloughs from three days to two-and-a-half days, using $70,000 in cash reserves and $167,000 in cuts in other areas.

In July, the governor announced a 3 percent cut in instructional funds to the state’s schools and the equivalent of three days payroll for all state employees in the school systems. Chief Financial Officer Greg Denney estimated the cuts would cost the county system $3.2 million. He presented the board members with an amended budget cutting $3.3 million through the furloughs, a hiring freeze, a reduction in general maintenance, transportation and textbook expenditures, as well as deferring some supply purchases.

Zauner requested that the board allow him to reduce the number of furlough days to protect the employees in the system.

“I think it’s very difficult, as we all know, especially with what’s going on in the economy, to take any hit,” Zauner said. “This hit is a pretty devastating one. I wish the governor could have found another way to do this, but he didn’t.”

Jana Forrester, a teacher from Temple Middle School and president of the Carroll County Association of Educators, attended the meeting to speak out against the furlough days.

“I noticed as I was making copies just how many more copies I’m having to make per class and how many more students I have in my class, yet due to (supply) money being slashed I’ve got less copies this year handed down by my administration,” Forrester said. “That’s OK. That’s a cut that I can adjust to. My students won’t suffer and my income won’t suffer, due to the fact that there are limited supplies in my classroom.”

She asked the board to look at the furlough days and to look at flexibility in calendar days to save money instead.

The board agreed to put the amended school calendar with 2.5 furlough days on the consent agenda for Thursday’s meeting. The amended calendar will include a half furlough day on Oct. 8. The afternoon had originally been scheduled for parent-teacher conferences, but those will be canceled. Teacher work days on Oct. 9 and Jan. 4 will also become furlough days.

“If we do this it shows some good faith,” Zauner said. “It helps a little bit with the morale of our people.”

Denney presented the board with the June financial report, closing the fiscal year. The fund equity, which is the amount of cash reserves, dropped about $1.5 million, not bad considering the cuts the system received from the state and the drop in local revenue from property taxes, he said.

“For the first time (since) I’ve been here in eight years, we did not collect all the taxes that we had budgeted for,” Denney said. “I think that’s a sign of the economy this past year.”

The system still has about $1.5 to $2 million in property taxes that has not yet been collected.

The system was able to make up much of the money it lost by cutting its expenditures. However, the losses were just too much to overcome without dipping into the reserves for some of it.

The system received $937,696 in July special purpose local option sales tax revenue. That is $30,210 more than June 2009 revenue, but $248,906 less than July 2008. So far, this SPLOST, which started in January, has taken in 5 percent less than 2008. Last month, the system had readjusted its projections for the SPLOST to $900,000 a month for the coming fiscal year.

In other business, the board added $24,981 in changes to the Bowdon High School gymnasium to its consent agenda for Thursday’s meeting. The fire marshal requested the changes – some changes to the companion seating near the handicapped seating totaling about $12,000, changes to the laundry area and door hardware and for an emergency key system.

The board will also approve a change to the Central Elementary School administration-media center renovation to relocate the sewer line at a cost of $8,455.

Work at the new Temple Elementary School is progressing according to schedule. The system will award the contract for the security system to Control Concepts at a cost of $75,250.