FORT PIERCE — The St. Lucie County School District plans to use about $15 million in federal stimulus money to fill about 90 positions and supplement programs for poor or disabled children, school officials announced today.

The positions, 58 of them newly created, will cost about $11 million, while the rest of the money will go to training, mentoring and instructional materials.

School board members, facing state budget cuts and declining revenue, voted in April to approve a plan to cut about $30 million from the district’s $197 million operating budget for the 2009/10 school year. About half of that came from eliminating 331 positions, including 157 teachers.

School officials, who are limited in how they can use federal stimulus dollars, said they wanted to use the money to save jobs, but also to provide employees with skills — the only thing that won’t go away when the money dries up in two years.

“We’re still in a negative budget position as is everybody else,” said Superintendent Michael Lannon of the district’s budget forecast.

Money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act comes to schools through two federal programs, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title I, which provides funding for programs serving children from low-income homes.

In St. Lucie County, more than half of the children come from low-income homes.

School officials were able to count seven more schools as Title I for the coming year — allowing funds to reach more places — by lowering the district’s poverty threshold from 73 percent to 63 percent, officials said.

School officials say they will hire teachers, classroom aides, math and reading coaches and a variety of specialists.

Tags: federal stimulus, Fort Pierce, Schools, St. Lucie County

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Economy, Fort Pierce, Schools, St. Lucie County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.