News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Midge Rose works with Sisters Middle School students.
Central Oregon Schools from Bend to Prineville are sharpening their knives for deep budget cuts. Sisters school officials are hoping to avoid that pain this year.
But cuts are coming as the state faces a cratering economy and steep budget declines. The depth of the cuts in Sisters - whether they start this year or next - depends on the March 12 vote on the local option tax.
"We've had a 1.2 percent cut already from the state," said school board chair Christine Jones. "We have sufficient carryover funds from sound fiscal management to absorb a cut of roughly (that) size. Beyond that, we'd have to start looking at how we'd adjust the budget for the rest of the year."
Because actual state funding for the school year isn't finally determined until May, it is unclear what will happen this year. Other districts, such as Bend-La Pine and Crook County, may cut school days off the end of this year. Sisters isn't there yet, but cuts of some kind will come, depending on the velocity of economic decline and state budget cutbacks.
"Nobody knows," Jones said. "We're reading the newspapers like everybody else."
It's next year that has the school board worried, especially if voters don't pass local option, which provides about $1 million of the district's $12 million operating budget.
"We could have the conjunction of a perfect storm ..." Jones said.
Sisters schools anticipate a cut in state funding and a decline in enrollment as a large high school class graduates with fewer new students coming in to the schools.
"When enrollment goes down we lose roughly $6,000 per kid (in weighted per-student state funding)," Jones said.
It's not easy to simply adjust staff levels to make up the loss.
"Say if we lose 90 kids," Jones said, "you'd think to maintain class sizes you would eliminate three positions."
But cutting three positions would save about $225,000 in salary and benefits. The loss of enrollment would take roughly $540,000 out of the budget. That leaves the district still about $315,000 in the hole.
Jones said that district officials are currently forecasting roughly a $300,000 decline next year with local option funds in the budget. Without local option, the reduction goes to $1.3 million. The board will start prioritizing cuts in March.
"We expect to have public meetings for people to give their input," Jones said.
District officials will know by March whether voters will approve the continuation of the 75 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation local option levy that has supported the district for the past eight years.
Without those funds, cuts will be deep and district officials say they will unquestionably affect classroom instruction.
How the district budget breaks down
The Sisters School District has a budget of $13,184,971, but $1,133,000 of that is passthrough state funding for the Sisters Charter Academy of Fine Arts charter school and two Web Academies. That leaves a roughly $12 million operating budget and $7.55 million in the "teaching and learning" category.
Of the nearly $7.55 million in "teaching and learning" dollars, approximately $967,000 is devoted to state or federally mandated programs including programs for "talented and gifted" students, English as a Second Language, speech pathology and auditory services, summer school programs, social work services and assessment and testing.
That leaves $6.5 million for "discretionary" teaching and learning.
Sisters spends $431,675 on "Central Administration" (superintendent's office, business management, supervision of mandated programs, etc.) and $766,788 on the principals' offices in the three schools (principals, assistant principal, secretaries, etc.).
(See "Who makes what in Sisters schools," page 30).
According to the independent Chalkboard Project's Open Books analysis, Sisters spends 65 percent of the budget on teaching and learning. This is a lower percentage than comparable districts. Seaside, which has a local option tax, spends 70 percent, while Philomath spends 73 percent. State average is 69 percent.
Sisters spends slightly more on central administration, at 4 percent, while Seaside commits 3 percent and Philomath allocates 2 percent (state average is 3 percent).
Sisters commits less of its budget to principals' offices at 5 percent compared to 7 percent for Seaside, 6 percent at Philomath and 7 percent statewide.
Sisters devotes 22 percent of its budget to "buses, buildings and food," which is higher than the state average (17 percent) and higher than both Seaside (17 percent) and Philomath (16 percent).
(Open Books' percentages are based on the most recent audited figures, which are for the 2007-08 school year, but those figures are acknowledged to be roughly accurate for current conditions. For more information, including more district comparisons, visit http://www.openbooksproject.org.)
Jones acknowledged that Sisters School District has struggled with a red-ink-bleeding food services program, but she said significant progress has been made since Operations Manager Leland Bliss took responsibility for overseeing the program.
"We have brought the loss down (from $120,000 to $60,000) due to extremely tight expenditure controls," Jones said.
She said the remaining loss is due to labor costs.
Where should cuts come from?
Many critics of Sisters schools - and public education in general - argue that schools are too administration-heavy and that cuts should be made there first.
Jones and school board member Jeff Smith told The Nugget that cuts in administration are definitely on the table.
"I think it's likely that we would (cut administration)," Smith said. "Administration, classroom education and co-curricular activities would be cut."
Jones concurred.
"Nothing would be immune from the hatchet," she said. "But the reality of it is that if we're talking about cuts of $1 million (if local option fails), the cuts are going to have to come from our largest expenditure categories."
Cutting secretaries would gain a few thousands of dollars, but not enough to offset a major cutback. There are also tradeoffs, Jones said.
"We could get rid of secretaries and the people mowing our lawns, but then you'd have our highly qualified principals doing those tasks instead of leading on teaching and learning," she said.
Smith disputes the basic premise that administration constitutes a layer of fat.
"Administration is not a dirty word," he said. "Somebody has to organize our educational activities. Somebody needs to keep track of our revenues and expenses."
He noted that there are numerous state and federal reporting requirements and the management of payroll for a large business, all of which require administrative staff.
What about cutting salaries across the board, as is sometimes done in the private sector?
"Number one, we have a union contract," Jones said. "But depending on the severity of cuts, that may be a discussion that's on the table. We're limited in what we can do by our contractual obligations."
The usual way around those contractual obligations when a district runs short of money is to cut days from the calendar, as Bend and Prineville schools are poised to do. Teachers and staff are not paid for those eliminated days. Sisters has done it before.
"Cutting days is cutting salaries," Smith noted.
Smith and Jones noted that transportation services are mandated and savings created by creating fewer and longer bus routes are offset by increased per-driver costs and the negatives of keeping students on buses longer.
According to Smith and Jones, the only way to make up large amounts of money is to cut staff, and that means some degree of cutting into programs. And it won't be only on the margins, Jones said. Sisters already has trouble offering enough sections of key classes like foreign language to meet enhanced graduation and college requirements and cuts are likely to increase those deficits.
For now, as school officials contemplate where to cut, the budget knife remains in its sheath - until the state legislature makes moves on the statewide budget shortfall and until Sisters voters hand down their verdict on local option.
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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