At a lengthy meeting on September 28, 2011, the ISD 166 school board spent hours laboring over its administrative budget in light of declining enrollment and uncertain funding. The focus was on whether to reduce the superintendent’s position, but also considered was trimming the K-12 principal’s position and the sports program as well as generating income from renting out the district facility’s west wing and going to a four-day week.
Superintendent Beth Schwarz, whose next potential contract must be offered to her—or not—by December, said she has considered all administrative services in looking for ways to cut the budget.
Terry Collins wondered if they could reduce district office staff positions. The office currently has a business director, a human resources/Community Education coordinator, and a part-time secretary. Schwarz said the financial and human resource positions are vital, but they could re-evaluate salary levels. Because teachers have taken over some duties secretaries used to do, such as laminating, Schwarz said, they could also consider reducing the two-person secretarial staff in the elementary/secondary office.
Reducing the superintendent position
Collins pointed out that they were looking at either shaving hours off many positions or significantly reducing or eliminating a few. He favored “shaving” for now and suggested that some superintendent duties be shifted to other positions. Superintendent Schwarz has already saved them some money, he said, by foregoing some of her benefits
Mary Sanders said she believes both the superintendent and the principal positions are needed as full-time as possible. She indicated she knows that reducing the superintendent position might result in Schwarz leaving for another job elsewhere. “I just don’t think it’s the right time to make a change,” she said, “—to risk losing our superintendent.”
White said she would be comfortable shaving the superintendent’s position and didn’t know how else they could make cuts that wouldn’t affect the students. “I’d like to have a full-time everything,” she said, “but we just can’t afford it.”
Leonard Sobanja suggested cutting the superintendent’s position to ½-1/3-time.
While finances are an issue, Jeanne Anderson said, they should provide the best environment and education they can. She said the principal’s position is a really big one and she didn’t know how they could reduce it.
Financial oversight is an important part of the superintendent’s position, Superintendent Schwarz said, but she believes the pursuit of academic excellence is the superintendent’s job as well.
She is not worried about being able to find another job, she said, but she is concerned that starting over with a new superintendent would set the district back because it would take time for a new superintendent to develop a vision and build trust. “It takes time to build up trust,” she said. “I’m scared for the district if you make a change in leadership.”
Schwarz suggested that the board consider keeping things as they are for another two or three years and see how funding and enrollment look then.
If the head of a company was looking at the kind of budget reductions the school is looking at over the next five years, Collins said, he would get going now on making cuts. “It’s a crappy set of choices. …I’m not sure that waiting gets us anywhere, because waiting gets us amplified pressure down the road.”
Many districts this size don’t have a fulltime superintendent, Anderson said, adding, “We do need to save.”
Collins said he thinks reducing the superintendent’s position is inevitable. He said he was not arguing that the work being done was not good; they may just need to have less of it.
“We can’t afford a full-time superintendent,” White said.
Terry Collins wondered if Lake County would consider sharing a superintendent or other positions. Sanders said they had approached the Lake County school board about sharing a superintendent awhile back, but they weren’t interested at the time. Collins said things might have changed. “They may be sitting at the table asking themselves the same thing: ‘How do we reduce the budget?’” he said.
Schwarz said she intended to stay longterm when she came here two years ago, and she made major life changes to get here. Regarding the initiatives she has implemented, she said, “It saddens me that I won’t be here to see some of those things come to fruition.”
Ways to increase revenue
The economic situation of state and federal government is too tenuous not to reduce the budget, Deb White said. Some districts have full-time grant writers, and she suggested they hire someone to write grants.
Schwarz said she thinks going to a fourday week would be better than reducing the principal and superintendent positions. All but one of the Minnesota districts on a four-day week are seeing academic improvements after they made the change, she said. Jeanne Anderson said Lake County has had a 50-percent improvement in its truancy rates since going to a four-day week. If students are absent less with a four-day week, Schwarz said, the school would get more funding.
Another budget-saving measure could be renting the west wing to Great Expectations Charter School, which had to turn students away this year because of full enrollment. They might also be able to share expenses in areas like payroll and support staff, Schwarz said, but she thought the ISD 166 staff would be opposed to this idea right now.
To be discussed
At the October 18 regular school board meeting, the board will discuss reducing the superintendent’s contract to 75 percent time or less for 2012-13 and 60 percent or less for 2013-14 and subsequent years. Leonard Sobanja said he would prefer just going to 60 percent right away, but he did not want that to be construed as a way to get Schwarz out. As long as you’re going to bite the bullet, he said, you might as well do it the whole way.
The board asked Superintendent Schwarz to bring them information on moving more sports to the community level and the effect of a four-day week on finances, academics, and sports schedules.
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