After handling routine business at the School District 166 September 15, 2016 meeting, the school board turned once again to the plan for funding the school if the proposed levy and referendum do not pass in November 2016. It was time, said Board Member Terry Collins, to move on from the “easy stuff.”
Collins reminded his colleagues that last year the school board cut a number of things from the ISD 166 budget and said, “We still had a $110,000 deficit—and we still didn’t make any progress toward restoring the fund balance.
“We’re looking at another $300,000 – $400,000 less than we’re spending this year. We need to be aware of that. Right now we’ve eliminated the ‘easy stuff’ and it didn’t seem easy,” said Collins.
Superintendent Dr. Bill Crandall went through the latest “ABC List” of potential budget reductions line-by-line explaining that the reductions are “target reductions,” because many things cannot be completely eliminated, such as grounds maintenance and substitute costs.
The “A” list includes items that would have the least impact on students and some hard costs were presented, such as capital projects like playground work, roof and floor repairs. By delaying capital projects, the district could reduce the budget by $155,000.
If athletics were eliminated entirely the savings would be $137,326. Elimination of co-curricular activities such as Robotics and Knowledge Bowl would bring a savings of $20,484. Crandall pointed out that the major cost of sports and activities is transportation.
The board once again discussed closing down the Arrowhead Center for the Arts portion of the building to achieve a $19,589 budget reduction. Maintenance Supervisor Tom Nelson said the ACA wing could not be shut down entirely as the campus sprinkler system is in that part of the building. Superintendent Dr. Bill Crandall agreed and noted that savings could be gained by lowering the heat and in the summer the HVAC could be shut down.
And, he added, the school district would have to have a discussion with the other entities that are involved in the Arts Center.
Crandall pointed out that if the district is closing the ACA, there would likely be other reductions that would free space in other sections of the school.
Cuts on the “A” list could result in a district savings of $386,841.
The school board looked beyond sports and extracurricular activities to the “B” section of the spreadsheet would add up to $116,011. That reduction would come from the elimination of an elementary school teacher, meaning larger class sizes; the reduction of hours for the social worker (whose hours have already been cut) and reducing the technology integration specialist further.
For the “C” list, Crandall said the district would be really “digging deep.” On the “C List” is the complete elimination of the technology assistant, two elementary teachers, reducing the guidance counselor, eliminating a bus route, and creating one section of middle school and one section of high school. The total of those cuts would be $635,144.
Crandall said “C List” is “all people.”
Crandall added “other items” to the spreadsheet, as asked by the school board. Those items are a wage freeze for all staff, which would be an estimated savings of $77,400. He also gave an estimate of the reduction that could be made by reducing graduation credit requirements to 21.5. The district could reduce costs by $181,866 by making that change.
There was a great deal of discussion about how transportation could be changed to save money and acknowledged this was extremely difficult because of the remoteness of ISD 166 bus routes.
Collins expressed concern about the impact of cuts on families. “With some of these things, there is a cost. We can reduce by that number, when we do that though, then there is an assumption of income loss.
“A year ago we were discussing reducing a band position by 17 percent and I think there were at least three families here saying their children would not be able to continue at this school if that were gone. Whether that was a real or idle comment, that is something to consider,” said Collins.
Likewise, Collins said if sports are gone and electives eliminated, the district could lose families, which would cause further decline in enrollment. “It’s not simply a matter of subtracting football, it’s a matter of subtracting football and students whose interest may no longer be here that may go someplace else. It’s not a matter of subtracting calculus, it’s a matter of eliminating families who want their student ready for college,” said Collins.
He suggested adding more columns to the “ABC List.” He said there should be a column that shows, “If we do this we save…and if we do this it costs…”
“We need to look at some of these decisions in terms of costs we may incur next year when we incur even more cuts; a kind of a death spiral is set off,” he said.
“I hope the public is aware of this when they ask us to make these cuts,” Collins said.
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