The Frankfort Independent school board joined the chorus of educators publicly opposing the use of district contingency funds to balance the state budget.
Superintendent Rich Crowe and Board of Education members signed a resolution Tuesday opposing the use of the funds to offset a predicted $161 million shortfall for the current fiscal year.
The Franklin County Board of Education and other Kentucky school boards have signed similar resolutions.
House Speaker Greg Stumbo said in October that lawmakers could consider using the reserves, which some have estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
The state requires that school districts keep 2 percent of their budgets in a rainy day fund, but many save more. FIS included a 4.6 percent contingency in its $9 million working budget.
Board member Jina Greathouse said the district’s $400,000 contingency is more than just a “rainy day fund.”
“It is that, and it does come in handy in the case of emergencies,” she said.
“But it’s also sometimes a tool for financial planning, and a way of putting some money back or holding onto it so we can pay for a school bus out of our general fund, instead going through the loan process.”
Frankfort Independent’s contingency fund contains revenue from different sources, she said, including tuition, local taxes and state funds.
“I think there is a great deal of thought that should go into this before any legislator should decide that they are to take these funds from any school district,” she said.