Beaufort County Schools continues its effort to nail down a budget for fiscal year 2016-2017.

Last week, the Board of Commissioners approved a proposal for more than $14.3 million to go toward the school district’s current expenses and $990,639 for capital projects, almost half of which would be used toward improving the safety and security of schools. The money allotted for capital projects is about $810,000 less than what the district asked.

Beaufort County Schools receives funding from the local, state and federal levels. The district prioritizes its budget needs based on the upcoming fiscal year, a two-to-five-year span and a six-to-10-year span.

Because it received less capital money, the Board of Education must scale back the proposed projects and prioritize the ones that are most needed.

Among some of the more costly items the district originally proposed:

• Safety and security: connecting corridors at Bath Elementary School ($190,060), Chocowinity Primary School ($129,000) and S.W. Snowden Elementary School ($386,100)
• Activity bus replacement ($188,216)
• System-wide technology maintenance ($400,000)
• Bathroom renovations at Bath Elementary School ($180,000)
• Boiler replacement at Washington High School ($160,000)

Another large portion of the proposed budget is devoted to replacing modular units at Eastern Elementary, John Cotten Tayloe, Washington High and Chocowinity Primary schools, jobs that would total more than $22.6 million over the course of the next several years.

Dr. Don Phipps, superintendent of Beaufort County Schools, said the Board of Education must now wait for the county to officially pass a budget to move forward, as well as wait for the North Carolina General Assembly to pass its own budget.

Phipps said the board has received some information regarding proposals at the state level, and some information about Title I money from the federal level.

“We don’t have anything definitive yet,” he said. “We’re in the middle of the process.”

This year’s budget already included 32 position cuts from the start, but if nothing changes, the county commissioners allocated enough money to avoid any more cuts in locally funded positions, according to Phipps.

He said there are no red flags in funding as of yet, but the Board of Education knows it must scale back its capital project and continue to wait for more information.

“We feel like we’re where we had anticipated being,” Phipps said. “It’s just a matter of waiting.”