ISD 166 Transportation/Facilities Director Mike Groth gave the school board a tour of maintenance facilities on January 10. Outside the bus garage, he pointed out the sander that helps keep parking lots around the Cook County Schools complex free of ice. It is installed on a large pickup truck.
Before settling into a discussion about serious budget challenges, the ISD 166 school board took a tour of some of its facilities with Transportation/ Facilities Director Mike Groth at a work session on January 10, 2012.
Groth pointed out a few maintenance needs, such as indoor access for doors in the roof of the Arrowhead Center for the Arts (ACA) and a need to replace or re-dip the stage curtain to meet fire retardant standards.
One piece of good news is that because asbestos was found under the floor of the Community Ed (“old”) gym, funds are available for removing the floor to get rid of the asbestos. Superintendent Beth Schwarz said the floor is in need of replacement anyway.
The board took a van ride to the bus garage, where Groth described how waste oil, which heats the repair shop and office, burns very well. He talked about safety features on the school buses, such as seats that are located above the typical crash zone and padded, rounded interiors with no sharp corners, and explained that the buses are well maintained for maximum safety.
Deficits snowballing
The board spent much of the rest of its work session discussing the budget. Superintendent Schwarz told the board that its budget reduction goals of the last couple of years have not been met because of rising costs and a reluctance to make program cuts as drastic as would have been necessary to meet the goals. “Leonard tried to warn us!” Schwarz said of school board member Leonard Sobanja. The problem is “snowballing,” Schwarz said.
District enrollment dropped 7.2 percent between the beginning of the 2009-10 school year and the beginning of this school year. The district has decreased expenditures from the general fund by 14.48 percent during that time. The goal, however, has been to get to a 45-day unassigned fund balance (the amount it would take to run the school for 45 days) by July 2013. It expects, however, to be down to 20.4 days by this July. The district’s auditor told the board this fall that schools with less than a 20-day balance are in trouble.
“Some of the things I’m putting before you tonight are not good,” said Schwarz. “They’re not good for the kids. They’re not good for the district. …The fiscal managers are saying, ‘Get to 30 days, get to 30 days, get to 30 days.”
This is going to affect our students, Jeanne Anderson said. “It’s very difficult.”
“If something doesn’t change,” said Schwarz, “…this district is going to be in statutory operating debt.”
Deb White wondered what the state would do if the district were in statutory operating debt (SOD) and the boiler system went out. When a school is in statutory operating debt, the state takes over management of its finances.
The state constitution obligates the state to provide education for its youth, Superintendent Schwarz said. She said school districts in Colorado won a state supreme court case in December in which the state was found to have failed in its obligation to provide an adequate education for its schoolchildren.
“We can’t wait until we get down to nothing to get proactive,” White said. “What happens if every district in the state goes into SOD?”
Declining enrollment
Some districts are doing well, Schwarz said, because they have strong ongoing levies or enrollment numbers are good. Right now, the school is teetering between being a “one-section school” and a “two-section school” as enrollment continues to decline. Each year the administration makes difficult decisions regarding classroom sizes from elementary grades through senior high.
“We are just at a very unfortunate enrollment amount,” said Anderson, “and that’s why we’re in the predicament we’re in.”
The district would be in a better position if the county’s charter school students were at ISD 166, said White.
Superintendent Schwarz said Cook County has 610 school-age kids, but only 470 of them are enrolled in ISD 166. Students have numerous other options such as home schooling, online schools, postsecondary educational options (PSEO) at area colleges, and Perpich Center for the Arts.
These students represent about $2 million in revenue, said Anderson. “That’s how much revenue we have lost, but we still need to keep operating,” she said. “It’s a concern, and I respect people’s choices. …That has been a significant drop in revenue for ISD 166.”
An example of the quandary is the sixth grade class, which has only 30-some students, Schwarz said. When they transition from elementary school to middle school or transfer in from outlying schools, should they be put into classes with over 35 students? she wondered.
Potential budget reductions
Superintendent Schwarz went over possible ways the district could reduce programs and expenses. She said she was simply presenting possibilities rather than making recommendations.
Potential areas for reduction included reducing “datadriven instruction” initiatives (frequent testing with analysis of the data in order to personalize instruction to meet individual needs); reducing secretarial and administrative assistant positions; cutting out some sports; eliminating four instructional days; replacing a full-time transportation/ facilities director position with a half-time director, half-time maintenance/mechanic position; replacing a full-time guidance counselor with a half-time counselor and sharing a family support worker with the charter schools; and going to a four-day week.
Superintendent Schwarz said the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has expressed interest in renting out the former district office space that is no longer being used since the elementary and secondary offices merged and the district office moved to the elementary school.
“It would be nice if this were a really big district,” said White, “in which there wouldn’t be names attached to these positions.”
The Cook County Education Association (CCEA) and Independent School District 166 announced January 10 that it had met earlier that day to discuss ongoing contract negotiations for 2011-13. The meeting included “frank discussions of district finances,” according to the press release.
“ISD 166 made a counter offer to the CCEA’s initial life insurance proposal but made no counter proposal to the association’s salary proposal for the 2011-2012 contract,” the new release stated. “The topic of mediation was discussed but tabled for now. The school board representatives agreed to return to the full board for further direction.”
The two parties will meet again from 3:30-5:00 p.m. Monday, January 16. The negotiation process is open to the public according to the Minnesota Open Meeting Law.
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