Thanks to federal funding and staff-development money given to the school by teachers, the Albert Lea school district will restore some teaching positions thought to be lost to budget cuts, the school board confirmed Monday.

The extra teachers will mean slightly smaller class sizes, said board chairman Ken Petersen.

Teachers voted early this year to give back $200,000 in money usually earmarked for training activities. State law requires a certain portion of school bugets to be spent on these staff-development programs, but if teachers vote to waive the requirement, the school can use the money for other needs.

Board members agreed to restore a total of two full-time equivalent (FTE) positions using the staff development money. Southwest Middle School will get an extra .4 FTE; the high school will get 1.4 FTE; and the Area Learning Center will get .2 FTE.

In addition, around $80,000 in excess federal funding will allow the addition of two elementary reading and math specialists for fourth through sixth grades.

That means rather than the 14 teaching positions the board announced it would cut in December, the district will go into next year with 10 fewer teaching positions.

The restored teaching jobs were part of the district’s annual budget, which the school board approved Monday.

The district’s budgeted expenses for 2002-2003 are $34,992,397, of which $28,232,311 is general-fund expenditures. The rest of the expenses are in the food service, community education, debt service and building construction funds.

The school expects $28,369,543 in general-fund revenues, meaning the school will end the year with a $137,232 surplus. That brings the school’s general fund surplus to $1,221,553.

School board members said around half the fund balance is money the school is free to spend as it chooses; the rest is designated by law to be spent on health and safetey, severance pay, reemployment insurance and other expenses.

The district’s undesignated reserves total $643,385, which equals less than a month worth of expenses, said finance director Mark Stotts. &uot;In relation to the actual budget, it’s not a very big percentage,&uot; Stotts said.

The budget does not factor in $300,000 the school will receive from the state to make up for lost enrollment because of the fire at Farmland Foods in Albert Lea. The district’s state funding is based on enrollment, so the school stood to lose money when families left town after the fire.

The board has not decided how the $300,000 will be used.

One other budget cut on the way to being restored is kindergarten busing. The district had decided to stop busing any students who lived within two miles of their school, changing the policy from one mile from elementary and 1.5 miles for middle school. But Monday the board amended the district transportation policy to restore the one-mile limit for kindergarten.