North Little Rock School District leaders have nearly finished preparation of the district’s 2018-19 school year budget — the first in decades that will not include millions of dollars in special state aid for school desegregation.
In recent years, the dis- trict has received $7,642,338 a year. A 2014 settlement in a long-running federal school desegregation lawsuit called for the special payments to end in 2017-18 — not only to the North Little Rock district, but also to the Little Rock and Pulaski County Special sys- tems.
The Little Rock district re- ceived $37.3 million annually and Pulaski County Special received $20.8 million.
Financial adviser Scott Beardsley told the North Little Rock School Board on Thursday that the district worked to sweep at least $6.5 million into savings this past school year for the specific purpose of offsetting the ex- pected end to the desegrega- tion funding.
Early figures indicate that the district is closing in on $7.5 million in savings, Beard- sley said. If that savings is re- alized, the district may not have to draw from operating fund balances to offset the de- segregation loss and meet ex- penses this school year, said Brian Brown, the district’s director of financial services.
The district, which is ex- pecting to generate about $99 million in revenue this school year, tries to keep an annual balance of more than $12 million. Districts are typ- ically reluctant to draw from their operating fund balanc- es because repeated draws on those surpluses can put a district at risk of being classi- fied as fiscally distressed by the state.
The proposed budget is subject to School Board approval before it will be submitted by the end of the month to the Arkansas De- partment of Education.
Nine state districts achieve new status
Nine Arkansas school dis- tricts have achieved “Five to Thrive” status as part of
a statewide campaign to en- courage districts to offer stu- dents a variety of nutrition and physical activity pro- grams to improve their health and academic achievement.
The districts are Little Rock, North Little Rock, Hot Springs, Russellville, Cotter, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff, Drew Central, and Fort Smith.
Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and the Arkansas No Kid Hungry campaign are sponsors of the campaign that is funded by Arkansas Children’s Hospital’s Natural Wonders Innovation Fund.
Districts received funding and assistance to put into place by August the five re- quired elements of the cam- paign.
Those are:
Adopting Breakfast Af- ter the Bell and a universal school breakfast program.
Serving or supporting US- DA summer and after-school meal programs.
Hosting nutrition educa- tion programs.
Maintaining or starting school-based pantries or providing students with back- packs of food for the week- ends.
Instituting an evi- dence-based physical activity program.
As finalist, garden
in LR gets $10,000
Dunbar Garden, which has been an outdoor education center in Little Rock for pu- pils in kindergarten through eighth grade for 25 years, is the recipient of $10,000 as a finalist for the Garden Club of America — Founders Fund Award.
That award was estab- lished in 1934 by the first Gar- den Club of America presi- dent, Elizabeth Pierce Martin.
Dunbar Garden’s applica- tion for the Energy Efficient Outdoor Kitchen Classroom was one of two applications to receive financial awards this year as voted by 200 Gar- den Clubs of America across the country.
The Garden Club of Amer- ica and its local member affil- iate, the Little Rock Garden Club, are longtime supporters of the Dunbar Garden.
Dunbar Garden is at 1720 S. Chester St., between Dun- bar Middle School and Gibbs International Studies Magnet Elementary School in the L