By Chaz Holmes

The Courier-Herald

After months of what Sumner School District Superintendent Gil Mendoza called difficult decisions, the Sumner School Board adopted the 2009-2010 budget at the board’s meeting Thursday.

The board needed to adopt the budget by Aug. 31 and the budget needed to accommodate for a loss in state funding.

Sumner’s final budget included $3.5 million in reductions, but the budget was passed without a reduction in force, so no employees were let go, although some positions were eliminated through attrition in the form of retirements or leave requests.

Budget cuts included a change in the hours at the swimming pool, changes in transportation to certain events and reduction in hours of some positions.

In other business the school board:

• passed resolutions verifying the Bonney Lake Elementary School modernization project will not lead to racial imbalance with the district boundaries and approving educational specifications for the project. The educational specifications are to relay to the architect and engineer the district’s objectives for the facility.

• approved a change order to modify lighting, improve roof venting and allow for other construction changes for elementary number 9, which is 88 percent complete.

To comment on this story view it online at www.blscmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/courierherald. Reach Chaz Holmes at 360-802-8208.