News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Those responsible for wielding a knife on the Sisters School District budget have been operating off a list of proposed cuts designed to make up for a projected deficit of $1.688 million.
But if you are looking at the district's budget document, you cannot find two numbers, subtract one from another and come up with the $1.688 million figure.
So where did the number come from?
According to school district business manager Sandy Tartaglia, that figure was derived from a shortfall in revenue totaling close to $800,000, stemming from declines in local revenue, loss of school improvement funds from the state, decreased spending from savings, reduced investment income and other causes.
This shortfall was combined with $891,498 in contractual obligations the district would be required to pay upon if staffing levels had remained the same going forward. Those contractual obligations include "step" increases on salaries, cost-of-living adjustments and increases in benefit payments.
So, Tartaglia explains, the $1.688 million "cut list" was based on a "fully loaded" budget.
The budget document does not reflect the full number, because 2008-09 budget figures don't show contractual obligations owed in 2009-10.
The district's budget document shows a drop of $686,919 between the 2008-09 adopted budget and the 2009-10 budget.
However, board chair Christine Jones notes, those numbers include "pass-through" funding for charter schools (including Web academies) of $1.1 million in 2008-09 and approximately $1.34 million in 2009-10 (an increase due to larger charter school enrollment). Factoring that in, expenditures for non-charter Sisters schools are projected to drop by $897,000 between this year and next, Jones said.
The district has left more than 10 positions unfilled, cut a couple of media manager positions, identified several areas of efficiencies and is seeking $269,000 in salary and benefit reductions for all staff to make up the shortfall from the fully loaded budget.
There are those who believe the district is not cutting deep enough. Board member Mike Gould voted against using a state biennial estimate of $5.9 billion as a basis for the budget, arguing that the district's expenditure of savings and probable enrollment declines call for more significant cuts.
Sisters is currently projecting a decline of about 80 students between this year and next, which should translate to a loss of about $500,000 in state per-student funding. However, Jones says that because the state is allowing districts to use the 2008 ADMw (weighted "average daily membership") when it exceeds the 2009 estimate as the basis for calculating their 2009 state funding, the district isn't going to take that hit this year.
"So essentially we will skate by the coming year without taking the full enrollment hit," Jones said. "We will need to budget for that in 2011."
Jones notes that, with separately accounted for federal education stabilization funds added in, "the state's projection for the state K-12 education budget next year is essentially a no increase in education budget, drawing on some of the reserve funds which they did not spend this year."
The key question is based on the assumptions "that they intend to hold 2009-10 harmless and take out any revenue shortfall in the 2010-11 year budget. Reasonable people can debate whether that is a reasonable assumption and whether we should be budgeting for a lower amount if they decide to take it out of the hide of the 2009-10 budget instead of the 2010-11 budget (or both!)," Jones said. "That's why it will be important to have a plan if 2009-10 revenue doesn't materialize, but I think it is even more important to think seriously about where we are going in 2010-11."
The school district must complete its 2009-10 budget 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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