Other proposed cuts include $10,000 each from the basic supplies budget and the athletics budget.

“We’ll have to ask the parents to help with the supplies,” said Gool.

Budgets for staff development and computer sustainability programs would be cut by $7,000 each.

Budgets for conferences, substitute teachers, Career Center tuition, the cafeteria, the district contingence fund and the district’s long-term funding stream would each be cut by $5,000.

Eliminating eighth-grade team awards would cut another $3,400. Dropping a software program called Successmaker would cut the budget by $4,400.

And finally, by reducing the room temperature in the district buildings by one degree, the district could cut $3,750 in heating costs.

“I tried to cut equally across the board,” Gool told board members. “It’s painful. You asked for cuts and I made them, but you still need a 3.74-mill increase just to maintain the services we have now.

“There’s no way around it.”

Under Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposed education budget, Keystone, North Clarion, Redbank Valley and Union school districts would receive a 1.5 percent increase in basic education funding – the minimum increase for school districts. Allegheny-Clarion Valley would receive a 1.65 percent increase; Clarion-Limestone a 1.91 percent increase and Clarion Area a 1.99 percent increase.

At Keystone, a 1.5 percent increase means a $97,222 increase over this year’s $6,481,440.

The proposed increase percentages in basic education funding in Clarion County are less than the contracted salary percentage increases. At Keystone, contracted salaries are expected to increase by $250,160 and Career Center tuition will increase by $125,000.

The funding proposal is based on a “costing out study” requested by the state legislature.

Keystone officials maintain the costing out study and recommendations made based on the study punish the district for being frugal.

“They’re saying we need to spend money to get more money,” Gool said of the study and funding proposal.

“No, they’re saying we need to waste more money to get more money,” countered board member Greg Barrett.

According to the costing out study, Keystone is spending approximately $9,184 per student per year when the study determined the district should be spending $11,472 per student per year.

Based on a complicated formula using property tax values, millage rates and a number of other factors, the formula used to calculate the district’s basic education funding for the upcoming year set the increase in funding at the minimum rate.

Keystone officials, along with other school board members and administrators from the other public schools in Clarion County plan to continue to protest the funding proposal.