Small Town News

School district facing projected budget deficit of $1 58,000

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A public meeting was held last week for Council School District Administrators and Trustees to discuss the financial situation with residents, teachers and staff.

Decreases in state funding passed by the Idaho Legislature this session have exacerbated a budget that had already been trimmed down to bare bones in previous years, with several programs cut and positions eliminated.

The state has reduced the amount they provide for teacher pay by 4%, administrative pay by 6.5% and discretionary funding by 14.4% percent. In addition to the pay cuts for teachers and administrators, these reductions will force the district to eliminate two teaching positions for next year.

But that only begins to describe the bad news.

Treasurer Cathy Lakey explained that even with the pay cuts and reduction of forces, the district is still facing a projected budget deficit of over $158,000.

Lakey distributed a pie chart that showed that of the overall $1.7 million school budget, the district actually controls only $480,000. It is from this chunk of money that the district will need to reduce spending in order to balance the budget.

That $480,000 breaks down thusly: 6% pays for district insurance, 8% is spent on supplies, 9% on services and travel, 10% on supplementing teacher salaries, 11% on athletics, 20% on utilities, and 36% on teacher benefit packages.

The meeting was attended primarily by teachers and staff (though a handful of residents also were there) and there was a lot of discussion on ways that they could save money by reducing supply expenses, trimming down the athletic budget or by finding ways to generate revenue through fundraisers or advertisements.

But such discussions seemed to ignore the huge elephant in the room.

If the district is going to slash almost $158,000 out of that $480,000 pool, they will almost certainly have to do it by gutting the teachers' benefit packages.

This would be on top of the pay decreases that they incurred during this school year, and the pay cut they can expect for next year.

There simply is no other way for the math to work, if the numbers revealed at the meeting are accurate.

For instance, the district could eliminate the entire athletic program and purchase no supplies (not that either of those are a reasonable option) and they would still be looking at a deficit.

The district has, for a second year in a row, declared a financial emergency that gives them the power to renegotiate teacher contracts. Last year, these negotiations were rather contentious and the same can probably be expected this year.

The district does have some discretionary cash carryover that could be used to plug budget holes, specifically a projected $134,000 Federal Forest Fund balance. But the district is leery about spending all of their reserve funds, which would leave them helpless in the event of unforeseen expenses or additional state holdbacks.

They do have other money saved up, but these funds are all earmarked for specific things. For instance, they have almost $200,000 in their maintenance fund, but that money can only be spent on the facilities, and most or all of that money will be used to replace one of the roofs, perhaps as early as this summer.

They also have over $200,000 from the recent settlement with Siemens Corporation, though this money is to be spent on improving the performance of the biomass burner. There is hope, however, that when the alterations are made to improve the boiler's performance, that will save considerable amount of the roughly $96,000 the district spends yearly on utilities.

The only solution to the projected deficit that doesn't involve pay and benefit decreases would be to find a new source of revenue, and the only way to do that would be to seek a supplemental levy.

Trustees and administrators don't believe that such a levy would have much of a chance of passing in today's economic climate, so that is not considered a viable option at this time.



Copyright 2010 The Adams County Record, Council, Idaho. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2010 The Adams County Record Council, Idaho. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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