SCHOOLS OFFER RECOMMENDATION FOR $5.4 MIL IN CUTS
The school district’s administration offered up their version of Lake Orion Community School’s (LOCS) budget puzzle at the Board of Education’s March 10 meeting, recommending a $5.4 million cut.
Audience members filled the board room, standing shoulder to shoulder and spilling into the hallway, as Assistant Superintendent Jillynn Keppler laid out what officials list as the three main puzzle pieces: fund balance, salaries and benefits, and suggestions from analyses and studies (see pages 4 and 5).
What ended up on the chopping block?
Elementary art, 3.5 family school coordinators (FSCs), Moose Tree Nature Preserve, middle school assistant principals, high school block schedule (to become a modified block schedule this fall), the high school media assistant, seven special education staff and one police liaison.
The recommendation also included a reduction to the Guided Activities Program (GAP) coordinator position, a modified school cleaning schedule, a change of four, 12-month secretaries to 11-month secretaries, a reduction in per-student building budget allocations, a coordinated purchasing process, an increase in high school and middle school pay-to-play fees, restricting after-school activities and collecting indirect costs.
‘Items could have the potential to change. It’s still a recommendation,? said Superintendent Ken Gutman, adding ‘We didn’t sign up for dismantling programs many of us helped build.?
In total, those dismantled programs save the district $2.9 million.
But, according to Keppler, the goal is to chop $5.4 million from the budget.
To make up the difference, the administration is calling for a 3.5 percent decrease in salaries and benefits for district employees, the mechanics of which will be negotiated on, as 80 percent of employees are union members.
Administrators say they made the recommendation based on assumptions that foundation allowance would decrease by $300 per student (a $2.4 million hit), student enrollment would decrease by 40 ($300,000) and salary and benefit expenses would increase ($1.9 million).
Based on those assumptions, the recommendation included taking $2.8 million from fund balance, leaving it with about 15 percent of yearly expenditures remaining.
According to Keppler, the original call for $10 million to be sliced from the budget was based on assumptions from December 2009. The new $5.4 is based on ‘what legislators in Lansing tell us.? She says changes in foundation allowance numbers is the main reason for the change.
‘A budget is only as good as the day it’s done,? she said.
Looking forward, the recommendation will filter through several more layers of public hearings and discussion before the board approves a final budget June 9, according to school officials.
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RESIDENTS: TAP FUND BALANCE, SLICE ADMINISTRATOR PAY
Cheers and applause burst from the board room audience after Greg Cole, a high school teacher and parent in Lake Orion, said, ‘Maybe the goal is to not spend the money on kids. Maybe the goal is to keep it in a savings account. Those are my tax dollars, and I say that’s wrong. I want that money spent on my kids. I don’t want that money in the fund equity.?
Cole and others called for the district to tap deeper into fund balance and top administrators? salaries and benefits.
Melissa Miller, a parent in the district, worked for a management consulting company for 21 years, ‘helping companies making their bottom line be the best it can possibly be.?
She says now she’s practicing what she preaches as Miller lost her job last December.
During the school board meeting, she called for leaders in both private and public sectors to take the ‘first hits and the deepest hits,? when it comes to cutting salaries and benefits.
‘The value of leaders demonstrating leadership is much larger than the cost savings you get out of it,? she said.
Therese Wisnewski, another parent in the district, asked the audience and board to visualize a ladder during her spot of public participation.
‘As these cuts have been going on, they’ve occurred within the support staff and with our programs and everything down at the bottom. You’re cutting off the legs of your ladder and eventually that ladder is going to fall apart because there’s no more support,? she said, urging the administration to make cuts at the top.
During the meeting, boardmember Janet Wolverton defended the district’s use of fund balance, saying, ‘I’ve been on the board for eight years, and for six of them we’ve made cuts. For the last two years, we’ve not had to because we put money away to offset the deficits. So we postponed things, like modified block scheduling, that could have happened two years ago, but we were able to stave off doing those things.?
She added, ‘It’s been raining and [fund balance] has been our umbrella for two years. It’s starting to thunderstorm now and it’s getting to the point where we don’t have a big enough umbrella.?
Friday, March 12, Gutman said administrators are working toward concessions.
‘As leaders, we need to step forward and take some reductions next year,? he said.
According to Gutman, negotiations are underway among building and central administrators for those cuts, but he said an exact number or percentage was yet to be determined.