School budget plan maintains services

Superintendent Steve Swisher on Monday night, May 5, proposed a 2003-04 Sisters school budget that would keep the level of service about the same as the current year.

If his scenario comes true, the schools will spend $8.4 million, 5.7 percent more than the $7.9 million being spent this year after cuts caused by state funding reductions. The increase would primarily go for negotiated salary and benefit increases for teachers and other staff members.

At the first school budget committee of the year, Swisher said his projection of state funding for next year might not come true. Therefore, he urged the committee to set broad priorities for up to $600,000 in cuts in case the final numbers out of Salem are unkind.

Ozzie Rose, executive director of the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, is estimating that the Legislature will provide school funding of slightly more than $5 billion for the next biennium (2003-05).

Gov. Ted Kulongoski originally recommended $5.05 billion but has revised his suggestion upward to $5.5 billion. The co-chairs of the Joint Ways and Means Committee have suggested only $4.8 billion. And more conservative members have been talking about $4.6 billion.

A state appropriation of $4.6 billion would leave Sisters more than $600,000 short.

With that in mind, the superintendent offered the committee a list of four possible clusters of spending cuts, each of which would reduce spending by about $200,000: increasing class size by a systemwide average of two students per class (allowing the elimination of 3.5 teaching positions), severely reducing funding of co-curricular activities, primarily sports; cutting music, art and foreign language instruction; and reducing the school year by six days of instruction.

Committee members took special note of the fact that the next school budget is assured of one very important chunk of revenue -- $700,000 from the "local option" tax approved by district voters in November 2000.

This four-year levy is in its second year.