PICKENS — Sometimes Kevin Kay loves his position as trustee for the School District of Pickens County.

Other times he doesn’t.

Monday night was one of those latter situations as the school board met to hold second reading of the proposed budget that includes the elimination of 30 teaching positions.

“Nobody wants to cut teachers or anybody else out of a job,” Kay said. “It’s a lousy place to be put in.”

The budget, set for $91,275,569, passed on a 6-2 vote with Alex Saitta and Oscar Thorsland voting against it.

School Superintendent Dr. Henry Hunt said that preparing the budget for fiscal year 2011 had been “extremely challenging.”

Hunt said that early estimates of state funding dollars for the district fell $5 million short of the previous year’s funding. Some estimates guessed the shortfall could be as high as $10 million.

While the district staff tried to make cuts to compensate for the shortfall, eventually they realized that they would not be able to balance the budget without cutting some teaching positions, Hunt said.

Half the cuts are being absorbed by retirements, Hunt said. But others had to be released.

“Balancing the 2010-11 budget required that we make some hard cuts,” Hunt said.

Hunt praised finance director Missy Campbell and her staff for their countless hours of work on the budget.

Campbell said that despite the reduction in teaching positions, the classroom ratio for the district would only be 21.5 to one.

The budget includes an $1 million contingency fund to cover future cuts in state funding that have become commonplace in the past several years.

Campbell said that there were no furloughs included in the budget.

“We chose to go the route of permanent reductions,” she said.

Campbell said that furloughs would remain an option if midyear cuts in state money goes over the $1 million contingency fund.

Campbell was asked if some of the cuts could be restored if the state legislature voted to increase funding. She said she would suggest not restoring the funding, because the budget for 2011-12 looks to be an even greater challenge.

“You would just be restoring programs that would have to be cut the next year,” Campbell said.

Trustee Shirley Jones said that while the board members have various ideas about how to face the financial crunch the district is under, all were sincere in their beliefs and appreciated the hard work by the district’s financial staff in forming the budget.

“Everybody is working in good faith,” Jones said.