2/12/14 - Brighton Area Schools Superintendent Greg Gray had some long-awaited news for the Board of Education at its meeting Monday night. Gray says the Michigan Department of Education has approved the district's deficit elimination plan for the current fiscal year which ends June 30th and the 2014-15 fiscal year. Gray informed the board Monday that he had received word earlier in the day about the state approval. Although the school district was supposed to have resolved the long-term deficit problem by the end of this fiscal year, the state had previously told district officials that they could have another year to eradicate the deficit - as long as the district was making progress toward that goal. The plan submitted several weeks ago to the state calls for reducing the over $8 million deficit to $2.7 million by the end of the current fiscal year. The good news regarding the plan is that it projects a budget surplus of $1.5 million by the end of the 2015-16 fiscal year. A motion to approve Brighton's deficit elimination plan as presented to the state was passed unanimously by the board at Monday's meeting. The district's financial improvement has been spurred by a combination of enrollment growth and, most notably, the shared services program, in which Brighton provides classroom instruction for private and parochial schools in a four-county area. The shared services program has been a boon to Brighton, which has taken the lead over most other Michigan public school districts in providing the classes, which are taught by certified teachers at the schools involved. Currently, Brighton provides shared services for private and parochial schools in several southeast and mid-Michigan counties. (TT)
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