News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News reports last week were startling. Comments made by Superintendent Elaine Drakulich in an interview with The Bulletin, picked up by local TV stations, indicated that the district might close Sisters Middle School or merge with another school district.
At their Wednesday night meeting, the Sisters School Board debunked those stories.
Board chair Christine Jones, in a prepared statement, said that a "strategy committee" has been exploring cost-saving measures in the face of "very challenging budget issues next year and in years to come."
However, she said, "just to be clear, the strategy committee has not been looking at, nor does the board support, the closing of the middle school next year. And to be even clearer, merging with another school district is an extreme measure that is not on the table."
Jones told The Nugget that the district does, indeed, face significant financial problems - an estimated $670,000 shortfall in next school year's budget and potentially worsening deficits in following years as Sisters' debt and personnel obligations continue to grow.
That, she indicated, was where the possibility of extreme measures may have come from.
"I think it's very similar to a family in financial difficulties," she said. "You put everything on the table. I think you could consider consolidating with another district, but that's like a family saying 'We'll go without health insurance or go without food one day out of four.'"
Jones said she wanted to clear the air at the school board meeting.
"I don't think they (school closure or merger) were intended for active consideration," she said. "We wanted to forestall potential community relations problems."
The board has asked each school principal to detail $100,000 in cuts in their building for next year, and the board is anticipating cutting some administrative positions to make up the 2010-11 shortfall.
"The board wanted to provide some guidance to the superintendent in preparation of the budget," Jones said. "This is the starting place, not the ending place."
The district will soon move into contract negotiations with its teaching and support staff.
"Later in the spring we will be negotiating with the unions," Jones said. "We obviously want to seek agreements that are in the best interests of all, but that's a ways down the road."
Sisters' financial difficulties are not a one-year problem. Loss of charter school revenue, principle payments on full faith & credit borrowing and, most of all, retirement payment liabilities threaten to create an additional budget shortfall of some $1.5 million in the 2011-12 school year.
"We're looking at bigger deficits in future years," Jones said. "The big factor is what will happen to our PERS (Public Employees Retirement System) payment rate."
If the PERS payment rate increases by 9 percent as projected, it will cost the district an additional $500,000 in 2011-12, composing a third of that year's projected deficit.
At the same time, more demands are being put on the system as the State of Oregon increases requirements for its 24-credit diploma (see "Graduation requirements getting tougher," The Nugget, March 10, page 1).
"Yes, we have a very tough next few years potentially coming," Jones said.
The district is also in the early stages of a search for a new superintendent. Drakulich is not renewing her contract when it expires at the end of June. Jones does not think Sisters' financial circumstances will discourage applicants - mainly because things are tough all over.
"I think... virtually all districts are facing serious financial challenges," she said. "I think anyone who wishes to be a superintendent in this economic climate knows this is a challenge they will be facing anywhere they go."
A district screening committee will start screening applications March 31, Jones said. She believes there will be good candidates because Sisters still carries some attractions.
"Sisters has a history of community support; we have excellent staff relations," she said. "I think we still have that Western 'cowboy-up' spirit that will help us get through whatever we have to get through."
For now at least, Jones said, that does not mean measures as drastic as closing a school. She assured the community in her statement last Wednesday that teachers, parents, administrators and community members will be involved in "any plan that would require major change."
The strategy committee will continue to meet to seek mitigation measures that have the least impact on students' education. Unless there is significant relief from the state on the horizon, that's the best the district can do, Jones said.
"You take the hand your dealt and do the best you can with it."
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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