ED-WATCH: BOONE SCHOOLS FACING CUTTING 77 POSITIONS - Linked To Coals Decline

(01/03/2016)
Boone County WV, long imbued with coal money that helped fund the county school system, could be cutting 77 positions.

The school's superintendent saYS THE coal-focused county is looking at the cuts due to falling tax revenue and declining enrollment.

Superintendent John Hudson said the school board will vote on the issue before March 1.

Sixty of the positions to be eliminated would be mostly teachers and a few administrators.

About 50 people in the professional educators category would be regular employees laid off from the system, while the remaining 10 are filled with substitutes.

Hudson said cuts to the roughly 660-person school system workforce would take effect next school year.

Seventeen other positions that would be reduced are service employees.

All state county systems are also facing an across the board budget cut for next year, mostly linked to declining tax revenues from coal and natural gas.