The San Benito County Board of Education will tighten its budget
belt for the 2004-2005 school year to make up for shortfalls caused
by low enrollment, low interest rates and a poor state economy.
The San Benito County Board of Education will tighten its budget belt for the 2004-2005 school year to make up for shortfalls caused by low enrollment, low interest rates and a poor state economy.
Board members read through the first edition of the proposed $11.5 million budget Wednesday, which is down 2.5 percent from the $11.8 million 2003 budget. Because of the $293,466 drop in funds, the superintendent’s office plans to cut back on travel and conference spending and will look at possibly laying off some personnel. Superintendent Tim Foley said the board is going to try its hardest to keep any cuts as far away from the schools as possible.
“We are trying to do as much cutting back here at our office so that the schools aren’t affected by the budget,” he said.
Despite the smaller budget, the board is proud of the way spending has been laid out for the upcoming year, and members are confident everything will be taken care of.
“We’re being very productive and efficient and we’re doing more with less,” Board President Guadalupe Candelaria said.
Because of low enrollment and low attendance, schools like San Andreas High School and the Community School will receive less funding. San Andreas received $1,160,368 in 2003, and will receive $1,014,107 in 2004-2005, a difference of $146,261. Foley said for every student who doesn’t attend school, the county loses roughly $5,000 a year.
“That may not sound like much, but if you figure that maybe 20 kids aren’t coming to class that’s $100,000 of funding we’re missing out on,” he said.
Santa Ana School will see a raise in funding. The county chose to add a seventh grade to the school because of the need for more reading skills education. The school will receive an extra $9,809 in the coming year.
“We’re setting ourselves up to tackle this problem,” Foley said. “This can be a really wonderful thing because these students are at the age where if they don’t learn and develop the reading skills to be able to take on comprehensive high school level programs, they’re very likely to drop out of school all together.”
Counseling for those students isn’t in the budget, but Foley said he’s confident the board will come up with a way to get it done.
“Things are tight and I’m stumped right now as to how we’ll do it, but we have a great team and I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something,” he said.
Along with a drop in interest rates on its reserve funding, enrollment and attendance are the main reasons the county saw a significant drop in school funding. Because the city of Hollister cannot allow any new building until a new sewer plant is finished in late 2005, San Benito County went from being one of the fastest growing counties in the state to almost no growth at all, Foley said. The drop in enrollment is a side effect of the flat-lining population he said.
The county hopes to develop an aggressive attendance and enrollment campaign to help students and parents realize if they miss school, they miss out. The campaign will be funded with money provided by Title 1, which is required to be spent on parent involvement.
“This isn’t just about money,” Foley said. “Kids aren’t learning if they’re not in school and that’s something we need to fix.”
Mike Sanchez, county director of alternative education, said the problem of enrollment and attendance cannot be fixed with one program.
“There are different reasons elementary school kids miss class than high school kids,” Sanchez said. “What we need to do is really focus on the families. One of the big challenges is a sense of disconnect with the system among many people.”
The county’s issues along with a poor state budget has hit the office of education with a double whammy that Foley predicts won’t be on the up-swing anytime soon.
“I anticipate our county as well as a lot of others will see pretty flat budgets for the next few years at least,” he said.
