After cutting more than $13 million in operating expenses since 2010, Monroe County School Board Chairman John Dick says he's hopeful that adoption of a 2012-13 budget and tax rate will mark a turning point for the school system finances.</p><p>Board members approved a spending plan and tax levy after Tuesday evening at the third of three required public hearings, this one held at Coral Shores High School.</p><p>Per the budget prepared by district Chief of Staff Ken Gentile, expenditures are projected at $79.5 million, with revenues coming in at $80,086,600. For the last fiscal year, spending hit $81 million against $78.5 million in revenue, resulting in a deficit. </p><p>The $79.5 million in projected spending for 2012-13 is supported by a tax rate of $3.66 per $1,000 of assessed home value. That's up 5.5 percent from last year's tax rate of $3.565 per $1,000 of assessed home value. </p><p>The proposed tax rate, for the owner of a $300,000 home, would result in a $1,098 tax bill; compared to $1,069 in the last budget cycle. That also assumes no increase in taxable value for that comparison.</p><p>"We have needed to get our financial house in order," Dick says, "and we're doing that."</p><p>The 2010 school year saw the start of a mandatory seven-day furlough program designed to cut personnel expenditures; unionized teachers are still fighting that measure, which they assert violates their contract. </p><p>Superintendent Mark Porter, who on Aug. 1 replaced Jesus Jara, reports some progress on the labor relations front. Jara left to become a deputy superintendent in the Orlando area.</p><p>Last week Porter and United Teachers of Monroe representatives agreed to cut $400,000 from the $1.1 million supplemental pay budget, collaboratively negotiating how the cuts would be applied.</p><p>"Nothing has changed other than the superintendent," Dick says of the financial outlook. "We don't have the money to do anything different."</p><p>Porter is the first superintendent hired directly by the school board, after voters in a 2010 referendum ended the previous post of elected superintendent.</p><p>Gentile projects an ending fund balance in June 2013 of 5.6 percent, or $4,128,683, and there has already been very preliminary board discussion, assuming that number holds, to scale back on furlough days.</p><p>"I would hope that we're not doing furlough days next year," Dick says, adding the caveat, "Unless something major happens with the economy."</p><p>In recent years, six figure budget amendments have arisen, in particular from underestimating charter school enrollment, as well as anticipating the need for additional teachers to meet state mandates on maximum class size.</p><p>Gentile says he has anticipated those shifts for the coming year and built them into the spending plan, which he calls "fully loaded."