The Brighton Area Schools Board of Education is poised to adopt the 2018/2019 budget.

The board will take action on an amended budget during Monday night’s board meeting. Superintendent Greg Gray says they’re putting more than $1 (m) million into fund equity, bringing it close to the $5 (m) million range. That’s a huge change from where the district was at nine years ago and one of the largest amount of fund equity the district has ever had.

Gray tells WHMI the board will also take up the proposed budget for 2018/2019, which will further increase fund equity. He says they’re looking to add about another $1 (m) million to fund equity at the end of the 2018/2019 school year, while investing heavily into positions throughout the district from new science curriculum, coaches, elementary school counselors and other pieces that were not previously part of the budget.

Gray says they’re pretty excited about the 2018/2019 budget as well as what was accomplished in the 2017/2018 budget but also really proud of how far the districts has come. He says it used to take eight months to do the budget and there was a lot of pain involved. He says the district was double digits in deficit 7, 8, 9 years ago so to switch around to a projected almost $6 (m) million in fund equity at the end of 2018/2019, is a pretty dramatic turnaround. Gray says they also received recognition from a company that looks at the fiscal health of a district. Brighton was previously rated the worst at “10” but this year finally received a “1”, which is the best. Gray says it’s been a long hard process and a lot of people have worked really hard, so they’re pretty proud of the fiscal health of the district. Gray says the district’s fund equity will end up close to $5.5 or $6 (m) million at the end of the 2018/2019 budget year.

Gray says the biggest challenge currently is to dream up new programming and challenge themselves to increase already great test scores. He says they remain focused on work being done in the classrooms and making sure kids get what they need.

The budget must be adopted by June 30th. The Board of Education meets Monday night at 7pm in the BECC building. (JM)