“There will be people that lose their job as apart of this reduction,” said District 303 Superintendent Don Schlomann serving a sobering reminder during Wednesday night’s business services meeting.
“We don’t go after $4 million dollars without people losing jobs.”
District 303, which currently has a balanced budget, is facing a $5.824 million deficit for fiscal year 2011 if some serious cuts aren’t made.
With about $1.4 million in stimulus money added to help stop some bleeding for the year, the district will still have to try to save about $4.4 million dollars.
During a presentation of the District’s five-year estimate by Mike Francis of the PMA Financial Network, Inc., it was shown that total revenue will not be able to keep up the pace with the districts expenditure unless changes are made.
Francis said the most important thing to look at with regard to revenue is the consumer price index. Francis predicts CPI will stand at 2.5 percent for the 2010 fiscal year. A one-percent change up or down in CPI is equal to a $1.2 million dollar growth or loss in revenue for District 303, according to Francis.
The CPI currently stands at 2.8 percent, but the school board is planning on the safe side and predicting the CPI will be 2.5 percent at the end of December.
Greg Cauffman, assistant superintendent for business services, said it is best to lock in the 2.5 percent estimate so the administration can start building the reduction plan now. The business services group will meet again in January to see if the CPI percentage has changed for better or worse. The end of the year CPI number is expected to come out on January 15, 2010.
As for the probable lay-offs, Schlomann said he wants to make them surgically instead of simply cutting first and second year teachers.
“I would rather say ‘It’s this person’ and have a discussion with that person,” Schlomann said. Staff reductions are expected to be announced in February after the school board has a chance to reexamine the updated CPI and district five-year plan.
Schlomann said there are a couple of things that will be left alone as apart of the budget, such as class size and school support programs, such as the newly implemented suicide prevention program.
Although lowering average class size could save District 303 $1.6 million for every student, Schlomann said he doesn’t believe the community would go for bussing students to different schools which are farther away to even out class sizes. On a case-by-case basis, this would mean a family might be in one school one year and out the next year.
“It’s not something I see this district putting much value into,” Schlomann said, saying he got the impression from Summit 303, a meeting with residents, staff and students. “As the economy continues to be bad, we might be forced into a situation, but (it is) not something a community would be open to doing unless they were forced to.”
