With 3 percent proration effective immediately, the Selma City Schools will lose about $583,000 during the next seven months.

Selma City Schools superintendent Don Jefferson told board members during their work session Tuesday, the proration amounts to about $83,000 a month.

“But there are things in the works by the [Alabama Department of Education] to offset that,” Jefferson said.

The superintendent didn’t elaborate on the help the state education department would give its schools. He said he would report on those issues at the next board meeting.

“They are still being discussed,” Jefferson said.

As the school system looks to lose more money, Jefferson asked the board to begin thinking about taking advantage of a loan from the state that would provide $2.6 million to add to the Selma High School building project.

The money would be available at no interest or an amount not to exceed 2 percent, Jefferson said.

If the school system took advantage of the program, it would cost Selma City Schools $173,000 a year for 15 years to pay back the money, the superintendent said.

The money would be used to renovate the choir and band halls and vocational buildings at the high school, which were omitted from the $27 million building project because the school system couldn’t afford the expense.

The school system borrowed $20 million in stimulus money from the state to build a new high school on Broad Street.

When Jefferson told the board the $2.6 million loan would be paid back with local funds, board member Holland Powell shot back, “Your local funds are upside down.”

Jefferson replied, “Depends on who’s doing the figuring.”

The superintendent also wants to take $250,000 of the system’s capital projects money to repair the floor in the little green building at Clark Elementary. The building houses pre-kindergarten, speech pathology and special education in five classrooms.

Engineers have said the floor in the building is unstable. The classroom building was closed down in January. The children and two departments were squeezed into the main school building, according to principal Aubrey Larkin Jr.

Jefferson said he would recommend the school system spend the money on the project.

Powell said he opposed the project because the school is built to hold 540 students, but Clark’s population in October was 359 students. Larkin said the student population Tuesday was 361 students.

Powell said placing the students in the two main buildings of Clark and razing the green classroom building and spending the capital projects money elsewhere seemed more reasonable, especially as the school system considers closing two schools to save money.

“It seems to me far less expensive when talking about closing down neighborhood schools to demolish the building and spend the money elsewhere,” Powell said.

The school board member said he found it “insulting” to spend money on a building that’s under capacity, rather than save that money.

Larkin said the children in pre-kindergarten require special-sized toilets and more room, as do the speech pathology and special education departments.

“Right now, we have people on top of people,” the principal said.

School board member Udo Ufomadu asked if the school system didn’t repair the classrooms at Clark would the action help save one of the schools slated for closure in 2013.

Jefferson reminded Ufomadu closing schools won’t occur until 2013 or 2014, and the school system finance may be different.

“You’re trying to balance in the blind,” Jefferson said.

t