Both Bremen City and Haralson County Schools – along with every other school system in the state – will be receiving funds for the next two months from the state of Georgia as a result of the federal jobs bill passed by Congress and signed into law last month.

The money is the result of the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act, which was signed by President Barack Obama on Aug. 10. The bill is slated to provide $10 billion nationwide in an effort to “enable 160,000 teachers to keep their jobs,” according to a White House blog.

Locally, the two school systems will receive around $400,000 and $700,000, respectively, and both plan on using the money, which can only be spent on personnel, conservatively.

Esther Parris, finance director for the Haralson County School System, said that the system is planning on saving the money until the next fiscal year, when the system anticipates more state-level budget cuts.

“In fiscal year 2012, the state is saying to expect more cuts. We’re most likely going to save it so people won’t have to be laid off if that happens,” she said.

The system has the opportunity, if the feared cuts do not occur, to restore some of the funds cut by the system at the start of this fiscal year. In order to save funds, the system has forgone the use of substitute teachers, several paraprofessional positions, the graduation coach position and many art and music teaching positions.

“Since we’re told next year is going to be worse than this year, we’ll save it until we can see how the future may play out,” said Haralson County Schools Superintendent Brett Stanton.

Bremen School Superintendent Dr. David Hicks agreed with Stanton and Parris’s assessment of the possibility of more cuts, saying that the Bremen City School System will also save the money for future use.

“Right now, we’re not sure what we’re going to do with the money – it has to be spent on personnel but does not have to be spent now, it can be saved for the future. Most systems are holding on to it because they anticipate more cuts. That’s what’s hard about a school budget, they can do cuts all year, but you can only set the millage once,” he said.

According to Melody Barnes’ White House blog, the money should save the jobs of 5,700 teachers (or at a cost of $322 million) statewide, depending on how the systems decide to use it.

Hicks said some other options include hiring new teachers or cutting back on employee furloughs, though so far the general consensus has been to wait and see, and in the meantime, save.

“You try to be conservative with your budget, and try a combination of smaller things that will add up without just absolutely having to let teachers go or all that. That’s the last resort. There’s really no easy answer, you look at your budget and trim,” he said.