By Alex Malm
During the Jan. 3 School Board meeting, Superintendent, Dan Black, presented to the School Board what would likely need to be cut if the default budget is passed this March.
Black explained that right now they’re looking at less than a 2% increase between the operating budget and the warrant articles, but he noted they are nervous the operating budget may not be approved.
“We’re nervous about that. We tried to limit the growth as much as possible,” said Black.
Black said if the operating budget isn’t approved they would have to make cuts to academics.
“We will need to cut into the academic program and we will need to cut into the co-curricular program. That’s not something we take lightly. That’s not good news,” said Black.
He noted the difference between the proposed operating budget and the default budget is a little under $400,000.
Black stated they looked at 12 different reductions that would likely have to happen if the budget was at default levels.
One of the reductions would be to move library media materials district wide to default levels.
The district would also make reductions to the general supplies at the schools.
“it’s not returning to default, but it’s definitely taking it down a little bit,” said Black.
For the gifted and talented supplies, they would make a reduction of $3,000.
“This is a hard one to make,” said Black noting the budget isn’t very big to begin with.
Black said as they make deeper cuts, the tougher it gets.
“As we get deeper I think a lot of these choices get tougher,” said Black.
It includes making cuts to staffing levels.
One of the cuts Black pointed to is a staff member at South School. He noted that making reductions of force is difficult because of the way the collective bargaining agreements are set up; it doesn’t necessarily mean the cut would be made from that particular school and instead the teacher being cut could be from a different school.
If they made further cuts they would have to cut a teacher from the middle school, which would have an impact on their foreign language program.
“I think we want to make sure we give kids enough opportunities to take foreign languages in the middle school,” said Black.
He also noted they may have to make a cut to the high school.
Black said explained the final cut would be to not have a temporary classroom at North School noting that it would mean they wouldn’t have a music classroom.
He said overall the cuts they would have to make wouldn’t be good for the school district.
“They’re not attractive, there’s a lot of problems with them, they definitely cut into our academic programs and they cut into our co-curricular programs,” said Black.
School Board member, Bob Slater, who asked previously for the administration to look at what it would take to get to the default budget levels, said he wouldn’t support any of the cuts presented.
“I for one will not touch any of these items,” said Slater.