District 196 School Board Takes Final Look At Proposed Budget Adjustments

When the District 196 school board met on Monday night, the most pressing topic of discussion was the same one that has dominated all of the board’s meetings in 2011: the proposed budget adjustments (or reductions) for the 2011-2012 school year.

The district is facing a $8.5 million shortfall in the upcoming budget and the school board has worked through a number of possible solutions to the problem. After discussions at a number of school board meetings, several focus groups with parents as well as communications with teachers, the final plan was presented on Monday.

As District 196 Superintendent Jane Berenz noted, the details of the proposal have been publicly known for several weeks. Monday’s presentation to the school board was their final chance to solicit feedback before the board votes on the proposal at their March 28 meeting.

The $8.5 million shortfall will be bridged in the new budget through a combination of service cuts, job losses and the use of a one-time $5 million grant from the federal government’s education jobs funding.

There will $3.4 million in cuts including the elimination of approximately 48 full-time equivalent positions and a reduction in bus transportation service by increasing the eligible service distance by one-half mile for all students. Special-Ed students will also lose their activity bus service.

Berenz said that this is the third year the district has had to make cuts and transportation had not undergone the types of cuts seen in other parts of the budget. “We did not go directly to transportation, at least not to and from school,” said Berenz. “We did have activity buses cut. But we can't continue on without touching transportation.”

The State of Minnesota requires school districts to bus any child that lives more than two miles from their school. But Berenz said District 196 has historically been more generous than the state minimum requirements. “Busing for elementary doubles from .5 mile to one mile. Middle and high school increase from one mile to mile and a half. But depending on how this goes with the budget and the state, we may have to go farther out in future years.”

In addition to the $5 million in federal funding, a revenue increase is proposed by by $10 for all high school sports and fine arts activities.

“We have looked at the participation rates and have not seen previous increases in fees have an impact on participation,” said Berenz. “But this is another area that we’ll be looking at closely in upcoming years.”

In her presentation, Berenz outlined the cuts the district would have made if the $5 million in one-time federal funding had not been available in the coming year.

Those cuts would have included another 40 positions, drawn from a number of different areas. “It could have been any kind of combination. We have our gifted and talented that we could have gone back to. We have our striving students program, which helps our secondary students who are having trouble with their reading,” she said. "We have career development courses that we may have had to look at. Media specialists, technology specialists, fifth grade band has been mentioned in the past. Some mix of cuts in those areas would have gotten us to the number we needed.”

Berenz said it’s unclear what the future holds for the district, but additional cuts are almost certainly in the cards. And those cuts will include some mixture of job cuts, service cutbacks and higher participation fees.

The issue of increased participation fees was discussed at length by Berenz and the board, especially given that the new budget proposal includes cutting the nearly $26,000 the district provides for high school ice skating. After some negotiations with the team’s boosters, the Icettes skating team will continue, but will have be self-funding beginning this fall.

“As we’ve been talking with parents, we’ve heard that given the choice between fewer activities or increased fees, they prefer an increase in fees,” said Berenz.

“I think it would be a good exercise for booster clubs across the district to go throughout the process of figuring how you get to a net neutral cost,” said School Board Vice Chairperson Rob Duchscher. “Because that's where we're headed. We're headed to a pay-to-play or a net neutral cost in many of these sports.”

School Board Member Mike Roseen agreed, warning that while the tough decisions have been delayed for a year, additional changes are coming in future years.

“I hope these groups understand. To me the choice between eliminating a program or eliminating jobs is a simple choice to make,” said Roseen. “I hate to get down to an either-or situation. But we've eliminated a lot of positions this year and we've eliminated a lot in the past...and we’re getting down to where there's nothing left. And if it means not having a program instead of having not having a classroom teacher, I think I know which way I'm going to go on this.”

The District 196 School Board will vote to give final approval to the budget reduction proposal at its March 28 meeting.