Schools face $600,000 deficit

Sisters schools face a $600,000 deficit next year, according to the most recent estimates provided by Superintendent Lynn Baker.

The hole could get deeper depending on the result of pending labor contract negotiations -- and the situation could be less dire if an economic uptick provides more funding.

"Everything is still projection," Baker said on Friday, April 2. "Right now, with our best estimate, we are probably looking at an approximate $600,000 deficit."

The district has already tightened its belt, knowing that the budget deficit was looming. Since February, there has been a spending freeze on all non-essential purchases, Baker said. Some positions have been shuffled or left unfilled to save money.

However, belt tightening -- even to the tune of thousands of dollars -- won't make much of a dent in the deficit, Baker acknowledged.

That will require deep cuts.

According to Baker, possible budget remedies involve lopping days off the calendar; increasing class size; cutting counseling and nursing time; cutting co-curricular programs and slashing music, art and foreign language programs.

Baker said the cuts will come next year, rather than some cuts being made now to lessen the burden next year. Baker said he is especially reluctant to cut days this year. Each school day costs about $35,000.

"Our teachers have had a day-decrease every year, I think, for the last three years," he said. "We haven't honored their contract. We're doing our best to honor their contract this year."

Nor are there any plans to cut staff this year year, Baker said.

Next year, the district will cut from five to 10 days off the calendar, probably pushing the start of school back later into September.

A total of 3.17 teaching positions and two classified (non-credentialed) positions will go unfilled. Other teaching positions could be on the block.

Some program cuts are possible. Baker noted that the district carries some expensive sports such as golf, where a coach's salary is paid, but the program only serves a handful of students. The superintendent was quick to say he was using golf as an example -- no specific programs have been targeted for cuts yet.

"We've just got some of those programs that don't serve very many kids that are expensive for us," he said.

The news isn't all bad. Recent reports indicate that per-student state funding may be boosted by about $125 per student, which would soak up about $140,000 of the deficit.

And Sisters' enrollment continues to grow, bringing more funding in with each student. This year, enrollment across the district grew by 11 percent -- 15 percent at the elementary school, 13 percent at the middle school and 6.5 percent at the high school.

"There's two things that are really saving us right now: increasing enrollment and local option," Baker said.

Local option is a temporary four-year school tax appropriation approved by voters in 2000. Local option puts more than $700,000 per year into school coffers. The funding runs out after the 2004-05 school year.

The school district plans to ask voters to renew the tax either in November of 2004 or in March or May of 2005.

Baker acknowledged that the increase in enrollment is driven in large part by the strong reputation of Sisters schools.

That puts the district in a bind: if the district cuts programs to save money, it risks degrading the program that brings in students and their attendant state funding, costing the district even more money.

The school board will begin plotting out a strategy for delicate budget surgery next week.