The Brown County Schools Board of Trustees has approved a larger budget for the Career Resource Center of Brown County than the current year.
The 2019 expenses were projected to be around $368,103. For 2018, the proposed expense budget was $300,079.
CRC Director Christy Wrightsman presented the budget to the school board on Oct. 18. “You’re not going to see a lot of difference except in one area, and that would be under career center salary and benefits,” Wrightsman said of the projected expenses.
In 2018, salary and benefits for employees totaled $255,579. That number jumped to $320,000 for 2019.
“That is due to the change in the director’s position at the career center,” Wrightsman said.
Wrightsman earns $92,500 as the CRC’s new director, but it’s not the job the previous director had. In her new role, she’s combining the director job and her previous job as the Regional Opportunity Initiative Ready Schools coordinator.
“As a result in the change of the responsibilities associated with the director’s role at the CRC, the salary and benefits have changed,” Wrightsman said in a follow-up email on Nov. 7.
Her salary will come from a separate CRC fund where all local referendum dollars are held. Local voters approved an 8-cent referendum in 2016 to aid the CRC and the Brown County Schools general fund. The CRC gets 1 cent per $100 of assessed value on property taxed throughout the county.
Wrightsman said at the Nov. 15 school board meeting that other full-time CRC employees will be recommended for a raise along with the other non-certified Brown County School employees. The proposed budget reflects those raises.
Earlier this year, Brown County Schools was awarded a $500,000 grant from ROI to go toward programs to help ready every student for whatever path they decide to take after crossing the graduation stage.
The CRC is being rebranded as the Brown County Education Hub using $27,310 of the grant money in phase one. The grant money will be spent in three phases.
This rebranding includes a “refresh” inside and outside of the building, which is under way. The building recently received a new coat of paint outside.
In the CRC’s budget for 2019, $27,000 from the Ready Schools grant was included, but not with the revenue or expenses.
“It’s not part of the budget, but I just wanted to make note of that; that is money we’ll be using for the CRC as well,” Wrightsman said.
Revenue for the CRC is projected to be a bit lower in 2019, coming in at $285,104. For 2018, the revenue was projected at $289,400.
Referendum money remains consistent at $137,000.
The endowments the CRC receives are expected to increase in 2019 to $60,000 from $53,000 this year.
But changes at the state level on how adult education is funded are resulting in a loss of revenue for the CRC. That revenue line is projected to be $30,704 in 2019. It was $44,500 in the 2018 budget.
Statewide, the overall amount of funding available through the Indiana Adult Education Grant decreased.
In her email on Nov. 7, Wrightsman said there is an “overall shift” in adult education from just attaining high school equivalency diplomas to “workforce skill development, certifications and training programs.”
“Currently, most of the services that we provide at the CRC for our community are not covered by funds allocated by the Adult Education Grant. It is the gift of the referendum, previous Lilly Endowment dollars, grants and the generous contributions of our donors that support the CRC,” she said.
Another reason the CRC expense budget has increased is due to the CRC purchasing Naviance, a college and career readiness tool that parents and students can access.
The district bought the same program for students in the sixth through 12th grades.
“We wanted to have that same opportunity at the CRC. That cost $5,100 per year. This first year was paid for through the Ready Schools grant and the next three years we will need to pay that out of the CRC budget,” Wrightsman said.
That resulted in the CRC’s technology equipment, materials and software expenses line increasing from $1,500 to $5,103 for 2019.
The CRC’s steering committee approved the budget before the Oct. 18 meeting. School board members later approved the budget unanimously.
