The Dallas County School System is inching closer to the state required one-month’s general fund operating balance.

The district began the fiscal year 2014 with a $328,763 balance, and it recently increased to $939,669, according to a Jan. 2 report conducted by the Alabama Department of Education.

The state requires its public schools to have a one-month’s operating balance, or $2.2 million in Dallas County’s case.

“We just did a better job of understanding how to get the money we haven’t been getting and [reducing] personnel [positions] is the first thing to do,” Dallas County Superintendent of Education Don Willingham said.

Instead of replacing school retirees with new employees, the Dallas County School System eliminated multiple positions and had its other workers to take on additional duties.

The system tossed four supervisor positions, multiple custodial positions, some maintenance staff, office aid positions, bus driver routes and certain programs.

“[The supervisor positions] were probably paid out of federal money, but that frees up federal money to be used on other things,” Willingham said. “So it trickles down. That money can be spent for some other things.”

In September 2014, the Dallas County School Board approved a 2015 fiscal year budget with an expected reserve of slightly more than $643,529.

Willingham said the school system, which has not reached the required one-month’s reserve for the past nine years, ran across a huge unexpected financial issue that drove the balance below the $1.2 million they anticipated.

More than a year after the Dallas County Commission implemented a half-cent sales tax increase in December 2012, county auditors learned that the tax revenue was inappropriately distributed.

Because the county tax applied across the county, both the county school system and the Selma City School System should have been benefiting from the tax.

Since the county commission amended the tax to include the Selma City School System in June, the Dallas County School System has been sending the Selma City its share of the tax revenues. So far, the county school district has sent the city school system $300,000.

“We hoped we would [meet the state-required reserve] in three years and certainly thought we would do in four,” Willingham said in September 2014. “Now that the revenue has changed, our whole thought process has to change a little.”

The board announced Tuesday that it is one of 22 districts meeting with the Alabama Department of Education to discuss various management reports and practices that will assist in developing a plan for financial improvement.

At the meeting, the state will provide a deadline for the final corrective action plans, which should lead the system to reach the required one-month’s general fund operating balance within three years.

“We know exactly what we need to do to get, three years from now, that $2.2 million,” Willingham said. “They’ll look at it and have to approve it, and make sure we know kind of what we’re talking about. You can’t just slap something down and it get stamped on through.”