Bowling Green Independent Schools approved on Monday a working budget for 2009-10 totaling $39.6 million, and the numbers for the budget that will carry the district through the fiscal year were crunched up to the last moment.

The working budget, approved by the city school board four months after a tentative budget was passed, provides a better indication for what expenditures lay ahead during the fiscal year, according to city school officials.

Projected general fund expenditures are $28,091,241, an increase of more than $500,000 from the $27,566,477 spent by the district in 2008-09.

District treasurer Jeff Herron said a number of sources will fund the spending increase, including increased local property tax funds of $261,083, utility tax funds of $87,417, an increase in the state-level Seeking Educational Excellence in Kentucky allocation of $129,696 due to enlarged enrollment and a $168,000 increase in money carried forward from the previous fiscal year.

On Sept. 3, the school board passed a measure increasing the property tax rate from 69.1 cents per $100 of property valuation to 70.7 cents.

At $14,522,352, the SEEK funding comprises the majority of the school district’s revenue stream for the current fiscal year, though Herron said the number would have been lower without the state using State Fiscal Stabilization Fund money allocated from the federal stimulus package to shore up SEEK, a state classroom-funding formula.

“We’re certainly aware of the challenges the state has brought us,” Herron said.

Those challenges include an unexpected depletion of about $101,000 from the city district’s revenue stream.

On Friday, district officials were notified by the Kentucky Department of Education that city schools would experience a nearly 21 percent cut in flexible focus funding.

The district had expected no more than a 4 percent decrease in the fund, which enables school districts to purchase textbooks, and Herron said no explanation had been given for the sharp increase in the amount cut.

Other revenue decreases included $49,432 in the motor vehicle tax due to assessment decreases, $66,000 decrease in interest and $7,000 in a category labeled “other.”

General fund expenditures are increasing to account for the addition of between eight and 10 new staff hires in the past several months, Herron said, several of them custodial staff at the new T.C. Cherry Elementary School building.

Helping the district in the first several months of the new school year will be the $3,389,059 in carry-forward money left over from the previous year.

“You see that balance decline until the tax revenue (from the newly set rate) starts coming in in November and December,” said district superintendent Joe Tinius. “To know we’re not going to find ourselves strapped for cash, we’re going to have to be able to carry forward $2.8 million to $3.2 million each year.”