Our $62,000,000 school budget looks like this: 62% goes towards teacher salaries, and that expense is mandated by a negotiated contract with their unions, and as such is un-changeable. Benefits for teachers and other administration adds another 13% to this pile of un-changeable expenses, and after you add the 7% of the budget that goes towards debt service, that takes about 82% of our school budget off the table!
So what is left in the budget? Operations and Maintenance accounts for about 8% of the budget, and covers required expenses to keep our school s running and safe – not too much to trim here. Transportation accounts for about 6% of the budget, and nearly all of it is mandated by the state, so again it is not negotiable.
Administration accounts for an additional 3%, and since most of their activity is required to ensure our schools are operating in accordance with all regulations, nothing can really be cut from here either.
Last year, our budget had a number of Capital Improvements that amounted to just over $2,000,000. Regrettably, I’ll pull all of those costs.
I would not hire any new teachers to replace out-going staff, and would instead take the opportunity to revisit class sizes across the district, and staff only those positions absolutely required to meet state and federal requirements. This would mean some teachers would be re-deployed outside their current department for emergency assignments, and courses would be cut. Busing is next up – Hazardous Busing amounts to about $400,000, and when facing cuts of this size, it puts my position on Hazardous Busing to the test. I feel that busing is the responsibility of the School Board, and while I am tempted to take that $400,000 and eliminate it, I can’t – many families rely on busing, and our schools are not configured for a few hundred of parent drop-offs each day. Cutting Hazardous Busing creates too many risks.
So where are we? I’ve saved an estimated $2,000,000 by refusing all capital investment, and I’ve trimmed our teaching staff by as many positions as possible without laying off any teachers. If 13 teaching positions are cut across all 7 schools – that amounts to $1,000,000 in savings, figuring an average $75,000 per eliminated teacher, based on $62,000 in average base pay, plus estimated $13,000 in benefits that are saved per teacher. But at what cost?
We would have bigger class sizes, reduced choices and opportunities for our students across all grades, teachers teaching outside their area of expertise, and a physical plant that is at risk of serious failure during the coming year.
Cutting 5% out of the school budget, when over 80% of the annual budget is non-negotiable, means you really are being asked to cut 25% of the negotiable budget, let’s all hope this hypothetical never comes to pass, because the impact of this one year’s budget cut would be felt for years to come, to the continued detriment of all the students in our district.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
It Can't Happen Here...
The East Windsor Regional School District recently put through a set of budget questions to the voters that would put the fate of numerous school projects and initiatives (full-day Kindergarten, non-Mandated Busing, and additional teaching staff positions) directly in the hands of the voters. It could never happen here in the Hopewell Valley Regional School District (HVRSD).
Why do I say that? It's simple - East Windsor choose to put all the nice to have programs in supplemental budget questions and is relying on the voters to approve the spending of monies above what the state allows in it's 4% annual budget cap. But this could never happen here.
See, in our school district only a handful of voters turn out each year to vote on the school budget and any open board positions, and if just a few more voters are against the budget than for it, then the school board is left to juggle spending to somehow provide enough monies to provide a quality education to the students.
If the Hopewell Valley Regional School District put Primary Strings, After School Activities, Hazardous Busing, and Practical Arts classes in a separate budget question would enough parents show up to approve these programs?
When the participation levels in prior school board elections hover around 20% (or less), a vocal minority can overwhelm a passive majority easily. Our budget problems here in HVRSD will only get worse for the foreseeable future - there is no silver bullet to solve our problems. Simple budget caps solve NOTHING, in fact they punish our children with school budgets that grow at a rate lower than our actual expenses rise, putting a long-term squeeze on every district. The state needs to revamp the entire school funding process, and instead of handing out money based on the affluence of a district, should hand out monies to address particular needs (special needs children, school construction, and others) and turn-over the day-to-day funding of school operations to the districts. Now, there will always be districts that can't afford to provide an adequate education to their children based on their tax rolls, and it is reasonable for those districts to get additional monies from the state, but this current system has got to end.
Why do I say that? It's simple - East Windsor choose to put all the nice to have programs in supplemental budget questions and is relying on the voters to approve the spending of monies above what the state allows in it's 4% annual budget cap. But this could never happen here.
See, in our school district only a handful of voters turn out each year to vote on the school budget and any open board positions, and if just a few more voters are against the budget than for it, then the school board is left to juggle spending to somehow provide enough monies to provide a quality education to the students.
If the Hopewell Valley Regional School District put Primary Strings, After School Activities, Hazardous Busing, and Practical Arts classes in a separate budget question would enough parents show up to approve these programs?
When the participation levels in prior school board elections hover around 20% (or less), a vocal minority can overwhelm a passive majority easily. Our budget problems here in HVRSD will only get worse for the foreseeable future - there is no silver bullet to solve our problems. Simple budget caps solve NOTHING, in fact they punish our children with school budgets that grow at a rate lower than our actual expenses rise, putting a long-term squeeze on every district. The state needs to revamp the entire school funding process, and instead of handing out money based on the affluence of a district, should hand out monies to address particular needs (special needs children, school construction, and others) and turn-over the day-to-day funding of school operations to the districts. Now, there will always be districts that can't afford to provide an adequate education to their children based on their tax rolls, and it is reasonable for those districts to get additional monies from the state, but this current system has got to end.
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