“ It’s been a pretty trying January, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job as a group working through the issues. Superintendent Beth Schwarz ”
The ISD 166 school board began its first regular meeting of 2010 on Wednesday, January 20 by taking care of some organizational details. Bill Huggins was voted in as board chair for a second year, with Leonard Sobanja, secretary and Eric Kemp, treasurer.
With “Expenditure Reduction Goal(s)” later on the agenda, the board discussed its own compensation. Last year, each board member received $100 a month plus $50 a day for workshops, conferences, or meetings other than regular school board meetings or $100 a day for events exceeding four hours (including travel time), $35 for contract negotiation meetings, and mileage to locations of official board business. Superintendent Schwarz said the school paid about $6,500 for school board expenses last year.
Mary Sanders proposed that they lower their compensation to reflect the district’s serious need to lower its budget. “I do not believe keeping it at this rate will lower anything,” she said.
Rod Wannebo, on the other hand, proposed paying the board chair $425 extra per year to reflect things like additional time in consultation with the superintendent.
“This is not a volunteer position,” Eric Kemp said. “Thisis a job I pay to be at.” As an example, he said he spent a considerable amount of his own money at the School Board Association convention the week before.
Bill Huggins said he would like to have some incentive to draw younger community members who are busy trying to make a living to serve on the school board. He proposed reducing their base pay to $1,000 a year.
Kemp opposed Huggins’ idea, saying these are difficult times, and being on the school board is a difficult job. “…I think it’s reasonable,” he said.
Theboard passed a motion to keep the base rate at $1,200, with the board chair receiving an additional $200.
The board divided up responsibilities on various community and school committees. Bill Huggins agreed to be on seven committees; Sanders, on seven; Sobanja, on six; Wannebo, on four; and Kemp, on three. Kemp thanked the rest of the board for picking up committee responsibilities that his schedule does not allow him to take on.
A major area of discussion for the evening was how to reduce expenses in light of declining enrollment and funding reductions projected for the next several years. Superintendent Schwarz said she has been soliciting input from both staff and students. “It’s been a pretty trying January,” she said, “and I think we’ve done a pretty good job as a group working through the issues.”
Eric Kemp relayed information he had picked up at the school board convention, saying a language loophole would allow the governor’s office to not only delay some of the school’s funding this spring, but to not pay back 17% of the amount that is delayed. Forty percent of the state’s budget is for K-12 education, Kemp said. “Thisis a crisis that the state is facing,” he said. “We’re the only ones with money in their fund balances. That’s a bank!”
If some of the delayed funding never comes, Schwarz said, that would call for further program and staff reductions. Kemp talked about the possibility of a referendum, which would put funding back into the budget. He said studies show that the language used on a referendum ballot can affect its success. As an example, Schwarz said, people are more likely to vote for funding for a “library” than for a “media center.”
The board discussed four budget reduction scenarios proposed by Schwarz: doing nothing, which would result in spending down the fund balance and possibly ending up in statutory operating debt; making 50% of the cuts needed to match funding projections for the next two years in the 2010-11 school year and the other 50% in 2011-12; cutting 40% next year and 60% the following year; or making all the necessary budget cuts in the coming school year.
Cuts suggested by Superintendent Schwarz include eliminating the late bus, eliminating the golf program, reducing coaching for extracurricular sports, reducing licensed faculty by 5.8 FTEs (which would include reducing secondary electives and eliminating one elementary teacher), reducing janitorial services, reducing special education programming, consolidating administrative offices, and going to a four-day week.
” The board did not vote on specific reductions but did vote to make 60% of the $682,588 in reductions suggested by Schwarz in the 2010-11 school year and 40% the following year.
Kemp said he knows the licensed faculty has been frustrated with the school board and believes that communication has been lacking between the two. He didn’t think the staff necessarily realized the kinds of funding cuts the Legislature is considering. “There’s a broad perspective that needs to be introduced into this conversation,” he said. He offered to set up a meeting with the licensed faculty to discuss their concerns.
Superintendent Schwarz said she has been feeling “trapped” between the board and the staff. Faculty members do not feel valued or listened to, she said. The board passed a motion supporting Kemp’s offer to meet with the faculty.
In other news, the school decided against applying for federal funds going to Minnesota for a qualify-improvement initiative called Race to the Top. Thegrant would provide up to $100,000 in funding for staff training and a peer review process to foster professional development, but unclear was the cost for participating, such as if the district would have to pay for substitute teachers and travel expenses when teachers received training. The district may still participate in a state-initiated peer review and staff development system called Q-Comp.
K-12 Principal Gwen Carman expressed appreciation to the PTA for buying sleds and saucers for the elementary students. She reported that the high school Spanish students initiated a fundraiser entitled Hope for Haiti in the wake of the country’s recent earthquake. Within a week they had already raised $900.
The next regular school board meeting will be Monday, February 22.
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