News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters schools will have $1,688,500 less to work with next year, as the budget committee has settled on a budget figure based on a $5.9 billion biennial state education budget.
By accepting the $5.9 billion figure, the budget committee essentially adopted a plan drafted by Superintendent Elaine Drakulich that eliminates more than 10 staff positions through attrition and calls for some combination of salary and benefit freezes or cuts to school days.
After significant protest from staff and the public, the plan to eliminate all the media manager positions (librarians) was modified to restore a .75 FTE (full time equivalent) position for a manager to cover all three schools' media centers.
No school days will be cut this year. According to school board chair Christine Jones, the committee deemed it too late in the year to cut days.
"It wouldn't be fair to parents," Jones told The Nugget.
Outgoing school board member Mike Gould cast the sole dissenting vote in the decision to base the budget on the $5.9 billion state figure. In a letter to budget committee chair Gene Carlson, Gould expressed deep concern about budgeting on too high a figure.
"I think our 5.9 assumption is badly mistaken," Gould wrote. "Furthermore, expending nearly all of our reserves in the '09-'10 school year is irresponsible. Sisters School District will almost certainly see continued significant enrollment decreases over the next 4-5 years. We are likely to have enrollment reduced by 300-400 students over this period. These are conservative estimates based solely on rollover - no consideration is given for loss of enrollment due to economic factors.
"Likewise," he wrote, "I don't think it is realistic to expect a significant improvement in the state funding picture in the next 4-5 years. So the challenge ahead for Sisters is huge-maintain a quality experience with a 20 percent loss of enrollment and continued reduction in state funding."
Gould argued for deeper cuts now, on a budget based on a $5.4 billion state education budget.
Jones acknowledged concern about the potential for further cuts in future years, but she defended using the $5.9 billion figure - with conditions.
"That's the number proposed by the governor; it's the number that the co-chairs of the (legislative) Ways & Means Committee have put forward, so it's clearly a reasonable number to use for budgeting purposes," she said.
However, Jones said, the likelihood of declining enrollment and the possibility of further shortfalls in state funding makes it necessary for the district to do some serious contingency planning for further cuts down the road.
For Jones, it is a question of balancing priorities.
"Do we deprive kids this year of some educational advantages or do we put together a real sound plan of expense reductions for the following year?" she said.
Further cuts would entail eliminating or reducing programs, Jones said, which should only be undertaken with detailed planning, which she would like to see in place by the end of the summer.
The district is currently in contract negotiations with its classified (non-teaching clerical and maintenance) staff. those negotiations will call for some cuts to their compensation or work days. The district is in informal discussions with the local teachers' association - negotiations which, because they are not actual contract negotiations, are being kept closed to public scrutiny.
Certified staff are being asked to help the district achieve $177,819 in savings either through some kind of salaries and benefits freeze, a reduction in contract days or a reduction in force (RIF).
"We've committed to helping the district get to that (number)," said Mike Cox, sixth-grade math teacher and president of the local teachers' association.
When it comes to cutting days, parents and several board members have drawn a line in the sand seeking to preserve instructional days at the expense of non-teaching conference or "in-service" prep days.
Cox sounds a note of caution on that score. He argues that there should be some balance between instructional days and non-teaching days in any cut, because teachers need the prep days to "make the product as good as it is" on the teaching days.
Cox said that a freeze to cost-of-living increases and to benefits are on the table, along with cuts to days.
"We're open to all kinds of possibilities," he said.
However, he noted that with teachers at all different stages of their careers, it is hard to craft a salary/benefit freeze that affects everyone equitably.
"Trying to find a way that can take an even hit is really hard to do," he said.
The district can initiate a RIF without negotiations.
"Certainly we never like to see anybody in our association be riffed," Cox said.
The budget committee is expected to approve a new budget soon. The school board must make the final adoption by the end of June.
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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