State funding cuts have increased the likelihood that next year’s Union County School District budget will be much leaner than this year’s.

The State Budget and Control Board slashed state funding for K-12 education another 2 percent last week. Finance director Lynn Lawson told school trustees Monday that this amounted to a loss of $250,000 in state funding for the district. He said this latest cut is causing revenues to fall below that of the previous budget year.

As of March 18, district revenues totaled $18,907,162 or $895,394 less than what was on hand last year. If current trends continue, the district will end the fiscal year with revenues totaling $28,302,675. That would be $2,517,301 less than the $30,819,976 budgeted at the beginning of the year.

If the cuts continue, Lawson projected that revenues for 2009-2010 will total $27,786,779, or $3,033,197 less than what was budgeted for the current fiscal year. The likelihood of less state revenue means the district will have to be even more conservative with its budgeting, Lawson said.

“After this last round of cuts it is very serious for us as it is for other districts,” he said. “We’re already taking what they’re giving us and being as conservative as possible and now we’ll have to be even more conservative. We’re already closely evaluating the current budget and next year’s budget to find what we must do to deal with this.”

To date, the district’s Education Finance Act funding has been cut $1.9 million. Another $600,000 in cuts in Education Improvement Act funding have either been made or are expected, bringing the total of amount of state revenue lost to $2.5 million.

The district has responded to these cuts by reducing expenditures not related to classroom instruction. Lawson said the district remains committed to cutting expenditures and maintaining a balanced budget without affecting classroom instruction.