PORT GIBSON – After two years of state allocations less than state-set formulas require, Claiborne County Public Schools have fallen almost $1.5 million short of needs, Superintendent Annie Kilcrease said at a public hearing Thursday,

The district has made another round of cuts for the 2005-2006 school year and will ask for more money from the Claiborne County Board of Supervisors, she said.

“We have trimmed the budget in every way we possibly can,” Kilcrease said. The district will ask the board of supervisors for about $1.676 million, up $165,278 from last year’s request.

Supervisors are required by law to provide the money, and most do so by increasing tax rates set for support of education.

In Claiborne County, the likely increase to be adopted in September will be 3.05 mills to 29.70 mills. That translates to the owner property and land assessed at $100,000 to pay a $297 annual total. Vehicle tax collection rates, if they change, are changed Oct. 1. Real and personal property rates are adjusted Jan. 1.

For the 2005-2006 school year, local property taxes will make up 9.3 percent of the $18.1 million budget for Claiborne schools, or about $1.676 million. In the 2004-2005 budget, property taxes were 8.4 percent of the $18.2 million budget.

Overall, state allocations to K-12 public schools are up 7 percent this year, but fall slightly below funding formulas set in the 1997 Mississippi Adequate Education Plan. Legislators have fully funded the formulas only one year.

Teachers are due an 8 percent increase starting in August, the last installment of a five-year, 30 percent increase.

Kilcrease said cuts were made to specific areas. She said about $100,000 was cut from the school security budget by reducing the number of officers in a building during operating hours and instead installing security cameras. Allocations for substitute teachers were also reduced.

Still, the average first-grade class size will jump to an estimated 23 students, up from 19 during the 2004-2005 school year, Kilcrease said. Historically, Claiborne schools have had a much higher-than-average per-pupil expenditure and in recent rounds of state-required testing, students have achieved the state’s highest rankings.

“We’re looking at the whole district,” Kilcrease said. “We will move whoever we have to move so the instruction of the program will continue to be sufficient.”