tNo teachers cut in BAC presentation
The Orcas Island School District’s Budget Advisory Committee (BAC) has taken last year’s budget and this year’s history to propose that $365,991 can be cut from the projected 2008-2009 general fund budget.
In a meeting with school board members Janet Brownell, Keith Whitaker and Charlie Glasser, Superintendent Glenn Harris, and the public on June 16, Steve Diepenbrock, Chair of the BAC, and Nancy Loomis, BAC member, expanded on seven different categories or “objects” to itemize where expenses could be cut.
The categories were salaries for certified teaching staff, salaries for classified (support) staff, employee benefits, supplies, contracted services, travel and capital outlay. Employee benefits was the one category that the BAC considered exempt from cuts, because specific personnel information was not available to the BAC and because the greatest portion of benefits was determined by contract and not subject to modification, said Keith Whitaker, the School District’s representative on the BAC.
Although they did not change the employee benefits, the BAC noted that benefits are usually 30 percent of salaries, but in the district’s case, the benefits were 35 percent of salaries.
The BAC team, which included Orcas Principals Barbara Kline and Tom Gobeske and School District President Janet Brownell, met four times in the past week. They held the austerity line, and reduced the travel and capital outlay categories from $39,506 and $9,269, respectively, to zero. The BAC commented that “travel should be grant specific” and that “unforeseen capital outlay” this year reduced those funds, which should be considered as part of contingency monies.
At the meeting, seven pages of spreadsheets were handed out to the public, while 29 pages of more detailed information that were available to the board and the BAC team were discussed, using a video screen. All the information was provided to the BAC by Ben Thomas, District Business Manager.
Diepenbrock mentioned that the BAC’s efforts were a work in progress, and that they hoped to keep making improvements to construct a tighter and more transparent budget.
Whitaker said, “We have a phenomenal amount of information; we wouldn’t be able to do this if we didn’t have the amount of information we have.” He added later, “We have clearly learned the truth of what Ben [Thomas, District Business Manager] says when he says he doesn’t have time to do this. Based on the number of hours the BAC has put in to explore the level of detail we have, it is not a job we could expect one person to do, and certainly not one person working a day and a half a week [Thomas’ hours].”
Diepenbrock pointed out several areas, such as extra time and professional leave substitutes for support staff, that didn’t tally with the district’s “concept of austerity.” He also emphasized that the BAC was relying on actual figures of money spent this year, rather than “rolling forward” figures from previous year’s budgets.
An illustration of the inadvisability of “rolling forward” amounts came to light when $8,1000 for an internship grant used two years ago had been included in both the 2007-2008 budget and the 2008-2009 projected budget, but never used.
However, some items were not forecast using current actuals because, said Whitaker, “There’s a known change on the upside,” such as in utilities expenditures.
Whitaker emphasized that the figures produced by the BAC showed reductions in budget amounts, not in programs. He said that this version of the budget involved no teachers being cut from the district’s teaching staff.
The BAC accounting indicated that, given the original $667,000 projected deficit, once their figures were applied, the ending deficit would be reduced to $125,000. “We were aware that some amounts would need to be put back in, but put back in appropriate categories,” said Whitaker.
This amount was calculated after $25,000 for a district-wide, discretionary Contingency Fund and $100,000 for a Active Reserve Fund (available to replenish the Contingency Fund, were included in their figures.
Whitaker said, “The dedication and quality of the BAC volunteers have been phenomenal.” Other members of the BAC are Dave Parish, Carol Sutton and Sam Windsor.
Whitaker described the advisory committee’s work as a “move towards actual-based budget; we’d still have contingency funds for protection.”
Board member Charlie Glasser asked Diepenbrock to forward the information to Thomas so that the board could “get his perceptions back and finalize the BAC’s budget development figures.”
Future dates in the timeline for budget development are:
• June 26 Board meeting and work session on the budget
• July 3 Budget draft to the public
• July 10 Budget draft to the public
• July 17 Public budget hearing and adoption
• July 31 Final budget adoption date
• Aug. 4 Final date to send adopted budget to ESD
Before the meeting concluded, Whitaker noted that areas of budget cuts that had not yet been discussed by the board were energy conservation, the library, coaching stipends, rerouting buses, rental rates for district facilities, and exploring alternatives to the continued maintenance of Mt. Baker cemetery.
