News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The wrestling program, which has comparatively high costs per participant, is unlikely to be offered next year, according to Sisters Middle/High School Principal Dennis Dempsey.
However, the final decision will be made by the school board next month.
"Our recommendation is to cut wrestling 7-12. What actually gets cut is up to the school board because of the new policy (regarding cuts and additions of cocurricular activities)," said Dempsey.
"Nobody on the staff wanted to cut any program, and their recommendation was to cut others things. But I met with Chuck (athletics director Dekay) and we decided to cut wrestling," Dempsey said.
"It has the least number of kids involved. We had already cut everything else except for supplies and officials. And you can't cut any more supply dollars. We still need paint for the football field, and basketballs," Dempsey said.
"Wrestling can still go on, but like skiing, golf and cheerleading, they'll have to raise funds in the community."
The total cuts from co-curricular activities next year, as opposed to this year, is about $30,000, Dempsey said, including $8,000 in transportation.
Next year's school budget was approved by the district budget committee on May 29 and is set for approval by the school board on June 27, according to School District Business Manager Earl Armbruster.
The general fund is down from last year. At the same time, Armbruster said, "We have to fund increases in operational costs, such as contracts with certified and classified personnel, increases in fixed costs such as water, and we have added textbooks."
The school board accepted a contract with employees this year that added about $120,000 to the costs. These increases were not budgeted for and had to be made up from other areas and by draining the district's contingency budget.
That contract will add another $150,000, or about 3 percent, to next year's costs.
Salaries make up 85 percent of the budget.
At the same time, state revenues per student have fallen because of a fixed amount of money being shared by a state-wide increase in the number of students.
"In order to balance the budget we had to delete two certified positions, reduce the educational assistants hours at both the high school and elementary, reduce custodial time and cut cocurricular," said Armbruster.
The two certified positions cut are at the elementary school, one teacher and the physical education specialist. Some class sizes will increase and teachers will now cover the P.E. period, which will mean the loss of their preparation period.
The time of educational assistants was dropped from 70.25 hours per day to 46 hours per day. "We will be giving pink slips to seven educational assistants -- the last hired. We also took some who were 6.5 hours and reduced their time to 3.75 hours," said Armbruster.
In addition to reducing direct wages, this eliminates the need to pay benefits to those assistants who will go from full to part time.
"When it all shakes out, we may be able to bring some of those people back," Armbruster added.
But it could also go the other way.
"If we don't have the students by September 15, we will be looking at what we have to do," he said, as opposed to waiting until later in the school year.
The budget committee has recommended a process of "zero-based budgeting." Under this plan, instead of looking at what the district spends now and building a budget on those priorities, "we would build a budget from the ground up, start with a blank sheet of paper," Armbruster said.
Another recommendation is to prioritize the next $100,000 in cuts "so we would not be in the same situation next May if the revenues are not there. Instead of cutting in a crisis mode, we would have a plan of what we will do if we are, say, $40,000 short, " Armbruster said.
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