School cuts loom
As Oregon’s budget woes spiral out of control, local district faces new paradigm of cutbacks
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 10:16 AM PDT
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| Ontario High School students fill the hallways, getting ready to leave for the day after school Tuesday. The Ontario School District faces even more significant budget cuts based on dismal revenue projections from the state. |
ONTARIO — Ontario School Board members will face some difficult options to ponder at Thursday’s meeting as the state’s budget woes may require further cuts in the Ontario School District for the 2009 to 2010 school year.
At Tuesday’s work session, Ontario School District Superintendent Dennis Carter said May’s revenue forecast from the state is looking even worse than the one issued in February, and he needed a recommendation by Thursday on further, more significant cuts in the district to put together a budget for next school year that take into account receiving even less money from the state.
Carter said the original budget was developed based on former projections of the state dedicating $6.2 billion to education, but he said, by May, he is predicting that will be reduced to somewhere in the area of $5.8 billion.
“For ever $.2 million that the state goes down, Ontario School District goes down about $470,000,” he said.
In addition to the previous cuts Carter recommended to the School Board last month, he presented a list of additional fiscal slices, as well as consequences, for the School Board’s consideration.
Those cuts include the elimination of school improvement expenses — including full-day kindergarten — and closing Pioneer and Cairo Elementary schools; going to a four-day week; elimination of new bus purchases, elimination of 2009-2010 salary and insurance increases; and reducing the number of school days overall.
“These are just some areas to look at for significant cuts of money,” he said.
“Unfortunately, all of those will be done in school districts all across the state,” Carter added.
After reviewing what each option would mean to the school district, Carter presented his recommendation to the School Board. His recommendations, factoring in $5.8 billion in funds from the state, required cutting $939,000 more from the next year’s budget and included eliminating the school improvement expenses, eliminating purchasing one school bus and delaying the purchase of one bus. His recommendations of further cuts if the state goes below $5.8 billion included cutting six days from the school year if the state allots $5.6 billion to K-12 education or reducing school days by 12 if the state goes down to $5.4 billion. Reducing school days, he said, would require negotiating with certified and classified unions.
Carter said, at least for the first year, eliminating school improvement expenses would have a small effect, other than it would reduce $741,000 from the school district’s general fund. He said, at least for a year, the small school expenses could be then paid for by Title 1 federal stimulus funds. In the 2010-2011 school year, however, if the economy has not improved significantly, the School Board would have to consider eliminating those expenses and programs again. After the meeting School Board candidate Renae Corn said she thought more than one suggestion, including reducing salary, needed looking at again.
“I think when you are facing an economic hardship, you have to look at all your resources and do the best you can with what you have,” she said.
The School Board members didn’t have much to say following Carter’s recommendations during the meeting. Kathie Collins said, however, it was important for everyone to keep in mind the recession would not last forever.
Following the meeting, board member David Cox said, it was hard to say which suggestion he most favored.
“I guess I think that at this point, without additional information, that Dr. Carter’s recommendations, or something like his recommendations, make the most sense,” he said, adding, his biggest priority is to avoid making any significant layoffs or decreases in salary that impact one group of employees more than any other.
