News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The budget picture is getting worse for Sisters' schools. The shortfall for next year has grown to $400,000 - and may turn out to be much greater.
The Sisters School District is currently planning to eliminate more than four teaching positions, cut back funding for sports and reduce supplies and technology funding. And the cuts may need to go deeper.
The school district budget committee agreed Monday, June 1, to cut 4.5 "full-time equivalent" teaching positions next year in an effort to save $227,500.
According to schools superintendent Steve Swisher, 1.5 of those positions are part-time or temporary teachers. In addition, second grade teacher Carol Boudreau is taking a one-year leave of absence; elementary school P.E. specialist Debi Meier is leaving to take another job, as is high school auto shop teacher Anthony Soto.
Soto's departure means the auto shop program will probably be eliminated.
Music teacher Jody Henderson is also leaving, but he will be replaced in order to keep the music program running. Swisher acknowledged that the schools can't be sure of hiring a replacement at the same second-year-teacher rate they were paying Henderson.
"That's a huge assumption," Swisher said.
If replacing Henderson means hiring a higher-paid teacher, more cuts in staff might be needed.
Because local tax collections are coming in slower and lower than forecast by the state, the budget committee has to cut even deeper than the approximately $345,000 originally anticipated.
The committee pushed their shortfall figure to $400,000, but Swisher notes that the shortfall could go much higher. In a worst case scenario, the schools face a total shortfall of as much as $600,000.
If that happens, the schools could be forced to make sudden, large-scale layoffs sometime next year.
The proposed current cuts spread the teaching staff thin, and class sizes will be larger.
The committee also agreed that half of a custodial position should not be replaced when a custodian retires in September. That saves $28,000, but leaves the schools operating with a bare-bones maintenance staff.
Funding for co-curricular sports will be cut back 10 percent across the entire program. The committee agreed on that figure after rejecting a proposal to eliminate all middle school interscholastic sports to save $35,000.
The cuts will save $22,500, but the move also means significantly higher pay-to-play fees and fund-raising requirements to keep many sports going.
The committee decided against recommending that the schools go back to one calendar. Such a move would save $10,000 in transportation costs.
School board member Harold Gott argued that the elementary and middle school calendar was adopted last year to encourage academic excellence and should be allowed to continue.
"We haven't given this the opportunity to bear the fruits of success." he said.
The committee also recommended slashing supply funding by $8,000 and cutting technology coordination funding by $5,000 - although Swisher noted that technology teachers believe the fund-ing actually needs to be increased for programs to run properly.
The school's contingency fund will be knocked back by 20 percent - $20,000 - and the food services program will be trimmed by $15,000 to a level where it pays for itself.
According to Swisher, that means trimming staff and raising prices.
The committee has yet to vote on a final budget package, which must be approved by the school board. The committee next meets on June 8.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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