Board debates funding priorities

The Sisters school budget committee Monday night adopted an $8.5 million general fund budget for 2003-04, as proposed earlier by Superintendent Steve Swisher.

The action is relatively meaningless, however, because the true size of the budget will be determined in Salem, not Sisters. The district's spending for next year will depend upon the current Legislature's school support appropriation for the next biennium.

Swisher and School Board Chairman Jeff Smith both reported that the latest word from knowledgeable insiders in Salem is that the Legislature will not settle on a 2003-05 school appropriation of less than $5 billion. That's the number upon which Swisher based his recommendation for Sisters' 2003-04 budget.

If the number approved Monday holds up, the school district will have about 6 percent more to spend than in the current year. Most of the increase will go for already negotiated increases in salaries and benefits for teachers and other employees.

If the Legislature fails to reach the $5-billion goal, however, the Sisters School Board will have to reduce its "approved" spending plan by about $160,000 for every $100 million in state underfunding. Contemplating that possibility, at the first budget committee session earlier this month the superintendent suggested that the group map out priorities for cuts if they become necessary. Monday night, the budget committee (all five school board members plus a like number of appointed citizens) went through an exercise that left the majority's priorities clear.

Each member (with one absence) ranked five possible areas of cuts on a scale from one to five, with the area to be cut first ranked No. 5 and the area to be cut last ranked No. 1. The lower the ranking, the greater the desire to protect a category from reductions.

When the rankings were tallied, the results showed the nine voters most inclined to cut days of instruction (41.5 points) and least inclined to cut a lumped-together category of music, art and foreign languages (14.5 points).

The next three categories in order of susceptibility to cutting were class size (31.5), counseling and nursing services (27) and co-curricular activities, including sports (20.5).

Board member Steve Keeton expressed surprise at the weak level of support for keeping class sizes (student-teacher ratios) low.

"Why would you let class size go up," he asked, when the local option levy approved in the fall of 2000 was sold mainly on the point of holding class size down?

Keeton and Board Member Eric Dolson were the only two participants to rank class size No. 1 -- the area they would be most reluctant to cut.

In the brief debate that followed, fellow Board Member Glen Lasken, who gave class size a 4 and music, art and foreign languages a 1, said, "We should do everything possible to hold onto programs."

If sports were severely cut, for example, he predicted that a number of students would transfer to Bend, thus depriving Sisters schools of even more state funding.