Bigfork schools face budget deficit
The Bigfork School District may be
looking at a more than $230,000 deficit as a “best-case scenario”
for its 2011-12 budget, business manager Eda Taylor announced at
the recent board meeting.
The challenge this year is that with
the Montana Legislature in progress, budget numbers won’t be known
for sure until the session is over, she said.
“It’s very hard to determine good
budget numbers in a legislative year,” Taylor said. “If everything
is the same, here’s where we’ll be.”
Figuring in no additional changes from
last year’s funding levels other than known contractual increases,
insurance increases and enrollment decreases, Bigfork High School
is looking at a minimum deficit of roughly $182,000. The elementary
school will have a shortfall of about $51,000.
That deficit will be larger if the loss
of federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding in the
general fund is not offset by the state. In that case, the deficit
district wide will more than double to be closer to $470,000. That
number is probably more realistic, Taylor said.
“We tried our best to keep salaries out
of ARRA money,” she said. “It was labeled as one-time only
money.”
The shortfall could be even bigger than
that though, if the legislature goes forward with a discussed 5
percent cut from all areas of the state budget, Taylor said.
Last year the district faced a
shortfall of approximately $297,000, the biggest in recent memory.
As a result, the board offered an early-retirement incentive, which
was taken by half a dozen teachers and staff members. Two certified
teachers were cut and another teaching position was left unfilled.
Five classified staff positions, both full and part time, were also
eliminated. A number of other positions, certified and classified
including tenured staff, also experienced reduced assignments or
were reassigned. In addition to a number of other smaller cuts,
funding for two sports programs, golf and cross country, was
eliminated.
With at a minimum a shortfall a bit
less than last year’s deficit, but likely more, the Bigfork School
District will be looking to make tough decisions on the budget
later this spring.
“It’s a grim picture, but it’s the same
grim picture everyone else is facing,” board chair Maureen Averill
said.
Other schools in the Flathead Valley
are also facing deficits. Kalispell schools are looking at a
minimum of a $500,000 shortfall. The Columbia Falls School District
is anticipating being at least $440,000 in the red. All of the
school districts though are in the same boat when it comes to
waiting on the legislature.
“We don’t know what comes next in
Helena,” Taylor said. “If history has it, it usually is the very
last thing (they address). We won’t know until May.”
Superintendent Cynthia Clary said work
will be ongoing on the budget, though it will be difficult until
those final numbers are known.
“It’s a work in progress,” Clary said
of the numbers. “We’d like to get information out as soon as
possible for staffing, but with a legislative session it makes it
really difficult.”
To get an idea of where the district is
at this year with funding, Clary requested that all purchase orders
for the school year be completed by March 1 so that an accurate
picture of spending could be determined.
APPROACH TO CUTS
Clary as well as principals at both
schools said as they look at cuts their goal is to focus on line
items that will have the least impact on students.
“I want to preserve the high
achievement and the sense of students feeling motivated in our
school and feeling like they belong,” said Jackie Boshka, principal
of the Bigfork Elementary and Middle School. “That’s what I’ll be
using as the No. 1 measure.”
Matt Jensen, principal at Bigfork High
School, said he will look to cut items that won’t change or cause
damage to the core aspects of the school, such as its small class
sizes and student achievement.
“We try to identify things that are the
furthest away and those are the most appropriate to cut and
hopefully have the least impact as possible to that core,” he
said.
Part of the deficit comes from a
decrease in enrollment numbers, which have been figured for the
district using three-year averages. Bigfork High School will see
the largest drop for its 2011-12 budget with a reduction of 27
students in its Average Number Belonging, or ANB, from the current
year’s figure. ANB is the enrollment figure used to calculate how
much funding the school will receive. Though that number impacts
the school’s budget, Jensen noted that the decline in enrollment
can be misleading.
“We have 18 students out of the
district that are coming to our school by choice and we have nine
in the district going out of the district by choice,” Jensen said.
“We have more students coming to us than leaving us. The drop in
enrollment is not from students leaving — it’s due to less
school-aged children living in our boundaries.”
That trend has been going on for
awhile, leading to overall decreasing enrollment at the high
school. The low-point is anticipated to come with the current
eighth-grade class in the district, which has been the smallest in
recent years. Following that class moving to the high school,
projections based on enrollment at the middle and elementary
schools show numbers on the increase again. Boshka said though the
elementary and middle school have seen drops in enrollment,
including seven students for the next year’s ANB, she’s seen class
sizes stabilizing.
It’s too early to identify specific
cuts, but Boshka said she’s hopeful the situation won’t be as bleak
as some suspect.
“I’m trying to be optimistic,” she
said. “It’s so early that it’s hard to predict.”
Jensen praised the approach of board
members to explore options for building maintenance issues and
other budget dilemmas that are ongoing.
“My hope is that everyone continues to
look at the issues for solutions,” he said. “We can all use some
creativity to solve problems. But, you don’t face a budget deficit
that large and not have some uncomfortable cuts.”