Schools brace for even deeper budget cuts

After many weeks of wrestling with cutting $600,000 from the school budget, interim superintendent Dennis Dempsey is scheduled to deliver his final budget recommendation to the Sisters School Board on Wednesday, June 2.

The district's budget committee also chartered at their May 19 meeting to include a proposal for an additional $150,000 of cuts in staff (see "School budget committee to consider deeper cuts, The Nugget, May 26, page 1).

At that May 19 meeting Dempsey said, "With all the cuts made last year, and the cuts proposed in the $600,000 budget reduction this year, the ONLY place that an additional $150,000 can come from is reducing the number of FTE (full time equivalent staff)."

Now, it looks like the cuts will go far deeper.

With Governor Kulongoski's May 25 announcement of a nine percent across-the-board cut in state budgets, it appears that Dempsey's budget proposal will have to include at least $500,000 in additional cuts, above the $600,000 or $750,000 originally anticipated.

These additional cuts will have to come from reduction in staff, reduction in the number of school days, or from the school's "rainy day" (assets and reserve) fund.

As reported by the Associated Press, the president of the Oregon Education Association says the cuts could equal as many as 4,000 jobs statewide. Locally, each teaching position cut would result in roughly $90,000 in savings, with a corresponding increase of class sizes. The new budget could be balanced by cutting six to eight teachers.

Each school day cut saves roughly $45,000. Cutting the school year by 11 to 15 days would also balance the budget. Sisters schools are currently at 187 days for 2010-2011. Cutting 15 days would leave 172 days, allowing for seven non-contact days while still meeting the state minimum of 165 contact days per school year. Waivers to the 165 day rule are available.

The third alternative is to draw upon the "rainy day" fund of more than $1,500,000. Until now, the Sisters School Board has taken the conservative approach of refusing to tap into their assets and reserves fund. This has put the Sisters School District in a much better position to deal with the cuts than many Oregon school districts.

The question the board must address is whether the "rainy day" is now or if a bigger storm is brewing.

The dire forecast for 2011-2012 school budget cuts remains at least as severe as earlier predicted, which means somewhere between $900,000 and $1,500,000 in further cuts.