Bustos and Corker would shift $447,000 in proposed cuts
BY JEAN JACQUES BOHL
Blaine County School District Trustees Cami Bustos and Elizabeth Corker plan to introduce an alternative budget for Fiscal Year 2017 that would shift more $445,000 in proposed cuts in the district’s operating budget.
The proposed alternative would restore the district’s Latino and parent liaison positions, the International Baccalaureate program, summer and after-school programs and a subsidy to Mountain Rides Transportation Authority for bus rides for students.
Instead, Bustos and Corker are proposing eliminating the district’s Communications Department, at a cost of $200,000, and reducing $120,000 from administrators’ salaries and benefits and $85,000 from administrator training.
They also plan to transfer the royalties that the district receives from a contract with Silverback, a private educational software company owned by former district Superintendent Jim Lewis, from the Blaine County Education Foundation back to the district’s general fund. Royalties from Silverback, which uses software developed by the school district, amount to about $90,000 per year.
Bustos and Corker unveiled their proposed budget alternative at a town hall meeting organized by Bustos and held at the Community Campus in Hailey on Monday evening.
After hearing the alternative, district Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes was adamant that “we are not eliminating the Communications Department.”
Concerning administrative salaries, district Business Manager Mike Chatterton acknowledged that salaries compared to nine Idaho school districts of similar size are about 40 percent above the average.
In an interview with The Weekly Sun after the meeting, Corker, who also serves as vice chair of the board, explained her reasons for submitting the alternative budget.
“It is the job of the democratically elected school board members to spend the taxpayers’ money wisely,” Corker said. “Everything in the budget should support the students’ needs for success.”
She said further that the Latino and parent liaison positions “support students” and are needed to “help parents access special services and know their rights.”
Corker also defended the International Baccalaureate program.
“This is a program that involved parents have told me has significantly increased the quality of their children’s education, teaches critical thinking, global-mindedness, etc.,” Corker said. “It was a top community priority of the last strategic plan. The district has committed significant funds to IB training of teachers; implementation of IB. Now we throw it away?”
Corker also claimed that her research has shown that the district’s teachers earn 61 percent more than the state average, a situation that she attributed to the higher cost of living in Blaine County. However, she said the some district administrator salaries range from 72 percent to 151 percent above the state average for comparable positions and argued that the differential should be scaled back to match the 61 percent higher wages of district teachers.
The district’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2017, which starts on July 1, is $88.8 million, with $53.6 million going to the general fund for operating expenses.
To change a trend in spending more money than it brings in each year, a situation that is gradually deteriorating the district’s financial reserves, the school board intends to cut about $1.3 million from its operating budget for FY2017 compared to FY2016.
The new budget is scheduled to be considered for approval by the five-member school board at its next regular meeting on June 14.