The Edwardsburg Public Schools Board approved a budget for the 2013-2014 school year Monday night.

The $20,956,935 budget comes with an expected $719,548 deficit.

This budget includes the adoption of a new science curriculum and the funds necessary to continue the partnership with the Elkhart Area Career Center.

Money paid into the Qualified Zone Academy Bond (QZAB) will be used to install interactive technology in core classrooms including laptop and tablet computers. QZAB funds will also be used for building improvements and the purchase of two new buses.

The budget also details revenues of $568,887 for Michigan Public Schools Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) section 147C, however, as CFO Anne Flautt explains, the money “represents funds the state is contributing to the Michigan Schools Retirement Fund. We are required to record this as revenue and expenditures on our books, but the net effect to our bottom line of this recording is $0.”

The board also ratified the Edwardsburg Educational Association Contract at the meeting. Superintendent Sherman Ostrander reported the teachers found it to be a “very amicable process.”

President Birdella Holdread said the new contract would be more “performance based” and that evaluations would be “skewed toward student performance.”