Committee okays school budget

Last updated 6/6/2006 at Noon

The Sisters School District Budget Committee Monday night, June 5, unanimously approved 2006-07 general fund expenditures nearly 14 percent higher than in the year that ends this month. The general spending figure is set at $10.92 million, $1.32 million above the current year.

Those numbers are slightly misleading because actual spending for the current year is coming out higher than what was originally budgeted, thanks to unanticipated revenue received as the year progressed. Nonetheless, the increase is significant.

The 2006-07 general fund figure won’t be final until approved by the school board later this month. At its next scheduled meeting, Monday, June 12, the board will set dates for a legally required public hearing on the proposed budget and for its own consideration of final action.

Because all five board members sit on the 10-member budget committee, the board is not likely to diverge radically from what the committee approved. But during the committee meeting Monday a couple of board members hinted that they may ask for some changes in spending priorities even if the overall amount remains the same. Board Member Rob Corrigan, for example, asked several questions about the possibility of beefing up high school foreign language offerings more than proposed in the document the committee endorsed.

In any event, the spending projected for next year provides more room for improvements than the tight budgets of recent years. Among items on the priority list of additions that emerged from the budget discussions of Superintendent Ted Thonstad and the district’s other administrators are:

• Adding two full-time-equivalent (FTE) teaching positions at the middle school to accommodate the move of the fifth grade to that school and to reduce class sizes, which are the highest in the district — $116,750.

• Adding 1.5 FTE teaching positions at the high school to increase class periods and electives for 11th and 12th grade students — $107,751.

• Adding a half-time kindergarten teacher — $35,291.

• Hiring a full-time district facilities supervisor — $73,822.

• Adding staff to provide a half-day alternative or behavior resource program at the middle school and a life skills program at the elementary school, one certified and one classified position — $97,798.

• Replacing outdated computers and other technology equipment — $60,000.

Thonstad told the budget committee he would also like to establish a reserve fund of $150,000, or 1.4 percent of the general fund. The budget so far contains only $97,816 in this category. The superintendent said that a budget of $10-plus million ought to have a reserve of at least two or three percent.