With Senate Bill 1 and the tax referendum now in place, the funding picture for the Taylorville School District is the brightest it has been in years according to the district superintendent. That news came at Monday’s Taylorville School Board meeting which started with a public hearing for the school’s budget for this fiscal year. The school board also voted to approve a two-year contract with the teacher’s union at Monday’s meeting.

Taylorville Superintendent Dr. Gregg Fuerstenau told those in attendance although the current budget has the education fund with roughly a 450-thousand dollar loss for fiscal year ‘17-’18, the budget includes no new money that will come in from the passing of SB1. Fuerstenau says the new money, along with money owed for pre-school in the district, could put the education fund into positive numbers for the year.

Fuerstenau says districts across the state are waiting for the final numbers to come out on where new dollars will go, but Taylorville will be one of the first districts to receive new money because of how far the district is from being adequately funded. Another big part of SB1 is that whatever Taylorville gets this fiscal year, they will receive at least the same amount in fiscal year ‘18-’19. Fuerstenau says the next fight will be for lawmakers to continue adding funds to education to get to the point where all schools are adequately funded.

The school board also voted to ratify a two-year contract with the TEA. Fuerstenau says the contract will give teachers raises over the next two years.

The next school board meeting will be held Monday, October 9 at 7 p.m. at the Taylorville School District Administration Building.