State budget likely to hit districts mid-year
Local school district officials are anticipating a mid-year
reduction in funding that they say is sure to come as California
state officials wrestle with an unprecedented fiscal crisis
amounting to a $15 billion budget shortfall.
State budget likely to hit districts mid-year
Local school district officials are anticipating a mid-year reduction in funding that they say is sure to come as California state officials wrestle with an unprecedented fiscal crisis amounting to a $15 billion budget shortfall.
Although California legislators have made no official statements regarding midyear cuts, Hollister School District Superintendent Ron Crates says they are a certainty.
“There will definitely be mid-year reductions this year,” said Crates, who added that he has already taken steps. “I put out a memorandum that I was stopping all purchasing, staff development and travel, Also any positions coming open will not be filled unless they are crucial.”
Crates explained that the Hollister School District cut $2.8 million before the school year started, including layoffs of teachers, due to state reductions in funding for the district. However, Crates now anticipates needing much deeper mid-year cuts.
Crates’ plan to halt all purchasing of materials should save the district $1.4 million, and the other items in his memorandum should bring the savings to $1.8 million for the school year, bringing the total for the 2008-09 school year cuts to $4.6 million.
Crates’ plan is to carry these cuts over to the 2009-10 school year in order to keep the district in sound financial shape.
“We are the largest employer in this county, so it is crucial that we not put ourselves in a hole,” Crates said. “Like I always say, we can’t use a Visa to pay off a MasterCard. We have got to make the necessary cuts as costs go up and revenue goes down.”
Jack Bachofer, the chief business official with the Hollister School District, said he agrees the situation is dire, but manageable through careful planning..
“We haven’t reflected the mid-year cuts in our first interim multi-year projections, which we presented Dec. 9 at the last board meeting,” Bachofer said, “because we haven’t heard anything official from the state. But almost everyone is certain mid-year reductions are coming.”
School officials plan to cut $1.25 million with staff reductions in 2009-2010, but that number may end up being higher if the state legislature agrees to mid-year cuts. More cuts may come in 2010-2011 if the state does not agree to pay 3.5 percent cost of living allowance (COLA raise).
“The $1.25 million in personnel cuts presupposes that we are already cutting energy, supplies, travel and substitutes,” Bachofer said. “The position cuts we have preliminarily identified are focused on school administrators, teachers on special assignments, resource teachers and other teachers not in the classroom.”
At San Benito High School, Superintendent Stan Rose confirmed that his district is adjusting as lean times become leaner.
“We are first trying to get an idea of what the scenario will look like, but no one knows what the final tally will be,” Rose said. “However, we do anticipate some level of mid-year reduction.”
Staff reductions are always a possibility, according to Rose, because “85 percent of our budget goes to personnel.”
Staff travel for conferences will be cut as well as “anything not directly related to the classroom.”
Regarding programs, Rose said that he wants to keep away from drastic action.
“I am not contemplating anything like Eastside,” he said, referring to a district in Santa Clara County that recently announced it is proposing cutting all funding for football, basketball, and soccer, among other sports, “but that does point out how deeply these cuts will go.”
Cutting programs can be a bad policy for another reason as well.
“When you tear down programs and then have to rebuild them from scratch you have to pay for what you once already had,” Rose said.
The San Benito High School District is in better shape than many local districts due to years of growth and increases in enrollment which allowed the district to accumulate a “healthy reserve,” according to Rose. However the reserve is meant to help in the short term, not act as a funding solution for a long period.
“There will have to be revenue enhancement and reduction in expenditure,” Rose said. “If it’s not a combination you are looking at economies and schools that will be very hard pressed to deliver programs at a time when mandates are higher than they have ever been. California schools started off ranked 46th in per-pupil spending in the United States this year. If these cuts are made we will be dead last and trying to meet the highest educational standards in state history with the lowest funding in the nation.”
Gavilan not immune to cuts
Gavilan Community College staff say they expect to feel the pinch of mid-year reductions in state funding just as severely as local school districts.
Conservative budgeting has put the college in better shape than many nearby community colleges but heavy cuts are being identified as the school looks to weather the current state fiscal crisis.
“We expect to get mid-year reductions,” said Jan Bernstein-Chargin, public information director for Gavilan, “so [Gavilan College President Steve] Kinsella put together an expenditure reduction task force made up of students, faculty, staff and managers to identify $800,000 to cut out of this year’s budget.”
The task force has done even better than that, according to Bernstein-Chargin who said that they have identified $869,000, and that they have their eye on another $200,000 in potential additional cuts that they plan to present to the Gavilan College board of trustees in January.
“The board has committed to no layoffs and no class reductions,” said Bernstein-Chargin, who added if staff leave or retire on their own, they will not be replaced right away.
Instead of layoffs, the task force is concentrating on creative cuts.
“For the first time ever we did not send a course catalog to every resident,” Bernstein-Chargin said.
Only continuing students received the full catalog, while everyone else got a small flier instructing them how to access the bulky catalog online, she said.
“We were also able to redirect $200,000 from our general fund by reassigning some positions so that they could get salaries and supplies paid for by a federal grant for science, math and technology classes.”
Another amount was saved this year, when the college held staff off hiring a strength and conditioning coach, and two assistant coaches.
These cutbacks and financial moves combined with a history of conservative fiscal planning have the college in decent fiscal shape, according to Bernstein-Chargin.
“Back in 2006, which was the largest funding year ever, Kinsella stood up at the board meeting and said that the time was right to start planning for the next downturn,” she said. “Because of that we believe we will be able to meet the community’s needs.”
