School governors are “crying themselves to sleep” over the funding crisis facing many schools in Powys.

Cllr Graham Breeze made the comment at a meeting of the council’s learning and skills scrutiny committee which discussed the school’s budget.

On 31 March there were 21 schools in the red, to the total of £3.98m.

It is expected that 28 schools of the 93 in Powys will be submitting deficit budgets.

Of these, eight are expected to return to surplus in the next two years and are proposed to have licensed budgets.

Cllr Breeze said: “I welcome the fact that this report has come to scrutiny before it goes in front of Cabinet, because many things in this document should be of concern to this council.

“We constantly hear that too many of our schools are in deficit, and not a person in this room thinks that is acceptable.

“But beating governors and headteachers with a big stick is not the answer to solve this problem.”

Cllr Breeze pointed out that school governors are volunteers who were getting upset and stressed at the situation.

He knew of one who told him she “cried herself to sleep”.

He wondered why anyone would want to be a school governor.

Cllr Breeze added: “We (councillors) are told as local education authority governors it’s our duty to ensure our schools produce balanced budgets.

“You are looking at one high school governor who’s telling you that it’s impossible using the current funding formula without jeopardising the quality of education on offer.”

Education portfolio holder Cllr Myfanwy Alexander said: “We know the situation is unsatisfactory.

“We will look to do whatever we can to put our schools in a situation to deliver the education our pupils deserve.

“But the fact is we only have a certain amount of money to go around.

“We are not funded adequately from central and Welsh Government to provide all we would like to.”

See this week’s south papers for the full story, available in shops and as a digital edition tomorrow