BY TERRY SMITH
The Blaine County School District Board of Trustees intends to make “multiple reductions” to administrative staff to help reduce costs by $1.3 million for Fiscal Year 2017, which starts in July.
The board’s intentions are revealed in a March 28 letter to the community from Board Chair Shawn Bennion, who wrote that administrative reductions at the district office is “the current solution, based on feedback from the ‘financial plan listening tour’ and budget survey.” Bennion wrote that the board plans “multiple reductions in staff and programs at the district level; the farthest away from the classroom.”
According to the district, this year’s total cost in salary and benefits for employees working out of the district office is $1.8 million.
Although the district and the board of trustees have discussed for nearly a year the need to reduce spending, Bennion’s letter, posted on the district website, provides the first official information on how money will be saved.
Bennion told The Weekly Sun on Monday that specific administrative positions to be eliminated have not yet been determined. He said district Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes is preparing recommendations that will be brought to the board for discussion at its next regular meeting on April 19.
Bennion wrote further in the March 28 letter that the school board is also considering a freeze on “staff movement on salary schedules” because of increased years of service or increased education and capping the number of teachers employed at the current level.
“Since we are not in a position to hire additional staff, current staff will need to be reassigned where the majority of students are enrolled, as enrollment shifts from elementary to secondary schools,” Bennion stated.
Bennion wrote that the school district is at a “crossroads,” explaining in the letter that for several years since 2006, when the state Legislature authorized the district to collect $29.5 million annually in property taxes from a permanent “stabilization levy,” revenues exceeded expenditures, but that for the past several years the situation has been reversed.
For example, for the current fiscal year, expenditures on the district’s operations budget of $55.6 million exceeded revenues by about $2.5 million.
Bennion wrote that the school board intends to approve an operations budget for Fiscal Year 2017 that is $1.3 million less than this year’s operations budget. He further stated that the board intends to save an additional $3-$4 million in annual costs over the next few years to place in an “unassigned fund” reserve balance.
Bennion noted that cuts to the administrative staff and programs will create “significant change for every staff member in BCSD. No one will be unaffected by these changes.”
“However, amazing things can be done when we work together to find solutions,” Bennion wrote. “There is no one more capable than our staff. They make miracles happen every day in the hallways and classrooms of our schools.”