CANTON –Speaking to a crowd of approximately 250 patrons at a community meeting, Bill Seidl, USD 419 superintendent, presented information about district budget concerns.
“We’ve had community meetings now, this is our eighth year, and this is by far this is the largest crowd that we’ve had,” Seidl said. “I appreciate your interest in being here, but we all know pretty much what that’s all about. But at the same time, always be reminded that these are your schools. This is your district, and we want to make sure that you have the input.”
Before fielding questions from those attending, he provided information including five areas: funding, budget cuts to date, budget reduction options for 2010-11, Schools for Fair Funding and the consolidation study reported in the Legislative Post Audit report.
He opened his presentation with an outline showing how school budgets are funded, identifying general state aid, the local option budget, capital outlay, bond and interest and federal funds. In his overview, Seidl identified some of the restrictions placed on different areas of funding.
In the second area of information, the superintendent identified the $182 cut to the base state aid per pupil for the 2009-10 school year. In November 2009, Kansas cut an additional $206 from the BSAPP. These cuts followed a budget loss of approximately $100,000 in 2008-09 school year due to a declining enrollment.
The budgeted BSAPP in 2008-09 was $4,433; this was cut $33 in the same year. Following the 2009-10 cuts, the BSAPP figure stands at $4,012. Seidl said he believes another cut will be made during this school year; the predicted figure is $286. If that cut occurs, the district will lose an additional $188,603 from the current budget.
To meet the earlier reductions, budget cuts were made for the current year. Staff reductions included one elementary teacher, two middle school teachers, one elementary/middle school librarian, a half-time counselor and a half-time Spanish teacher. Extended contracts for staff were also reduced. Other savings resulted from the reductions in several areas: nine school days, textbooks, library budget, technology budget, coaching staffs and technology staffs. No salary increases were given to teachers for the current year.
Before referring to the 2010-11 budget outlook and possible reductions, Seidl encouraged the patrons to keep and use the budget documents that were provided to those attending.
“When you leave here,” Seidl said, “the reason you have this [budget document] is for talking points. When someone asks you what’s going on, I would encourage you to refer to this because what school districts don’t need is misinformation.”
As the district looks at possible cuts for the upcoming year, the superintendent said part of the information needed to come from the patrons. He dispelled a rumor he heard a few days ago: that the district was planning to close the elementary school. Seidl said no decisions have been made, and the board of education will be looking at all areas of the budget. One of the challenges of setting the budget for a school district is that decisions usually are made in July while the actual budget amount is not determined until the official enrollment is taken on Sept. 20.
Previous budget cuts already have hurt students according to Seidl. As early as Sept. 28, teachers identified the absence of a counselor as a very serious school problem.
“We cut a half-time counselor last year, and quite frankly, our kids are hurting,” he said.
Seidl briefly reviewed 11 general areas for possible reductions: certified personnel, classified personnel, budgeted items, building reorganization, fixed costs, liabilities, food service, technology, building maintenance, professional development and transportation.
One question posed by a patron involved the four-day week. Seidl said that it had been considered in a very general way. One of the biggest concerns was the impact on the classified personnel, whose wages would be cut by 20% if that action were taken. Another concern involved the working parents who depend on the schools to help provide care for children; when a student is sick or school is closed, parents must make arrangements. It would seem that a parent who works a five-day week might be inclined to take their student to the same city in which they worked, and the district’s enrollment numbers would be jeopardized.
In looking at the Schools for Fair Funding, the superintendent described the the Montoy case, which was filed by 15 school districts that were looking for equalization of funding. Those larger districts claimed the weighted formula gave an unfair amount of funding to the smaller schools.
According to Seidl, USD 419 lost approximately $160,000 when the weighted formula was changed following the Supreme Court decision. That loss to the district was offset by an increase in the BSAPP. Currently, 74 districts make up the SFFF, including USD 419 whose membership fees were paid by a private donation.
Seidl raised the question, Who holds the legislators accountable? The public should know how their legislators voted and if they support the schools. The SFFF is working on briefs, but no decision has been made to file a new lawsuit.
The final issue that was formally addressed was the consolidation study reported in the Legislative Post Audit data. Seidl explained that the group studied 10 school districts of different sizes; Canton-Galva was compared to the study of Ellinwood schools.
The first scenario used criteria from the 1960s, which recommended consolidating districts that had less than 200 square miles and fewer than 400 students. USD 419 covers 168 square miles and has an enrollment of 369.5 students. The second scenario was based on combining districts so that the newly-structured districts had a minimum of 1,600 regardless of the amount of square miles of the district or how far students would have to travel by bus.
“There are some fallacies that go along with that [consolidation]” Seidl said. “They didn’t do anything about the transportation of the students. The only way to save money, and we’re talking about big-time money is to close buildings. That’s the reality of it.” This would also include cutting jobs of teachers, administrators and classified personnel.
Both scenarios would reduce the number of districts. Scenario one would reduce the number from 293 to 266; the second scenario would result in 152 districts.
In response to a question by a patron about the legislature possibly forcing consolidation, Seidl said he did not have the feeling that the legislature would force consolidation. He does expect the legislature to provide incentives over time for districts to do so.
“I don’t see the legislature coming out and saying this [consolidation] is what’s going to happen; what they’re going to do is choke us out,” Seidl said.
A question was voiced about the efficiency of closing and vacating school buildings in this district and then constructing additional buildings in another district. According to Seidl, that question has not been addressed in the study. Neither has the question of who would pay for the five years on bonds and interest on the district’s elementary building.
After a patron’s query, Seidl told the audience that the district has approximately $125,000 in contingency reserve. If the anticipated cut becomes reality, the superintendent said he would recommend that the board use $65,000 to $70,000 from the contingency fund toward the additional deficit.
Board president Keith Becker noted that the state has used some stimulus money from the federal government, and the state’s deficit would be larger if they had not done so. That stimulus money runs out next year.
Several patrons wanted to know what they needed to do as the district faces the budget crisis. E-mail addresses for Senator Jay Emler and Rep. Clark Shultz were included in a document handed out to each member of the audience. Seidl said the district will provide some talking points that patrons can use as they correspond with the legislators.
The superintendent also described the “Race to the Top,” a grant for which the state has applied. Decisions on the grant recipients are to be announced in March.
When pressed for information about what items might be cut from the district’s budget, Seidl said no decisions have been made. Several questions were raised about how could the district raise money. The response: the key to creating a budget increase in the district would be an increase in enrollment; other options would increase the budget very little.
Sue Unruh, Canton-Galva Middle School teacher, asked to speak to the audience. She told them that while they might not be able to make a big difference in the finances, they certainly could support the schools by simply getting involved as a community. That involves attending activities and events to show support for the students.
“I think we need to pull together,” she said. “We need to keep the programs that keep kids at Canton-Galva.” She challenged the audience to remember why they chose a small school setting for their children and urged them to pull together as a community to keep that.
One patron expressed serious concerns over the possibility of having to consolidate with a bigger school. She said she and her husband moved from McPherson to Galva in order to have their children attend a small school.
Seidl encouraged the audience to attend a second community meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. March 11 in Galva. He also told them that when the board meets to make decisions on cuts, the public will be invited to that meeting.
