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District begins discussing ideas to reduce expenses Now that the state has cut down on school funding for the remainder of this academic year and the next, on Monday evening Del Norte County Unified School District began discussing how to make cuts to its own budget. State funding cuts for this school year exceed $1 million. For the 2009-2010 year, funding will be about cut by about $1.4 million. The budget deal reached by state legislators last week decreases funding to the school district’s general revenue and to specific programs, such as grants for arts and music, counselors at the high school, and everyday things like instructional materials and transportation. “There’s never a final chapter to the ongoing budget debate,” said Deputy Superintendent Rodney Jahn. While the district will be subject to cuts from the state, Measure A, the district’s $25 million bond levy will not make up the difference. Taxes collected from the voter-approved measure must go towards building improvements and modernization and cannot pay the district’s operational fees or salaries. Another major concern is that the state will be deferring its monthly payments even longer than it already has, Jahn said. Payments have been coming in about two months late. The district will have to watch its cash flow carefully to make sure it has enough money month to month. “Our cash flow right now is OK,” he said. “It’s over the next year and a half that I’m worried about.” Cutting payroll Due to decreasing enrollment alone, the district could lay off three teachers at Del Norte schools and keep class sizes the same, Jahn explained. That would save the district just over $140,000. Another possibility is increasing K-3 class sizes from 20 students per single teacher to 30 students, which would result in laying off about 19 elementary teachers to save almost $870,000. However, the state gives school districts money to keep K-3 class sizes at 20:1 and penalizes districts that fail to do so. Crescent Elk Middle School seventh-grade teacher Gayle Hartwick implored the board to keep the 20:1 classroom ratio. She said to look at the “nickel and dimes things” that really add up, “instead of the big items that affect kids.” “It’s the children that take the brunt,” said Janet Parker, a kindergarten teacher at Bess Maxwell Elementary School about the importance of small class sizes. “It boils down to crowd control.” Parker suggested not administering tests or buying new textbooks during for the next year to save money. “Not taking a test is not going to kill them,” she said. “Shoving them into a classroom with 30 kids will do irreputable damage.” The district has to send off layoff notices by March 15 and the board will weigh its options in the next few weeks. The district won’t know for a while how many employees will be retiring or even how many kids will be enrolled next year. Like last year, some of those who are laid off could be re-hired.
Some of the other cuts being considered include reducing some employees’ hours to part-time, cutting board members’ health benefits, and reducing staff professional development days to one day a year (however, this has to be negotiated with the unions). Board member Bob Berkowitz said he wanted to keep the idea of cutting his and the four other board members’ health benefits on the list to discuss later. He also asked Superintendent Jan Moorehouse to talk to superintendents in nearby counties to see what cuts their districts are talking about. “Maybe they’re considering things we’re not,” he said. Board member Tom Cochran suggested looking into closing school libraries and the IMC (Instructional Media Center) and cutting sports that are not self-sustaining like football. “I’d rather put teachers in the classrooms,” he said. “That’s the hard part.” Several in the audience representing Mountain Elementary School in Gasquet were concerned about the rumors that the school would be closed. The school has 26 students and two teachers. Superintendent Jan Moorehouse said she was looking into funding specifically for “small necessity schools,” but added that the board has expressed in the past that they didn’t want to close it. Both employee unions, the Del Norte Teachers Association and California School Employees Association, submitted their suggestions to trim the budget. DNTA wants the district to look at a long list of items, such as eliminating all busing, doing away with middle school sports, re-negotiating the superintendent’s salary and benefits, reducing paid administrative days, four-day school weeks and asking parents to buy school supplies. Some of CSEA’s suggestions were reducing music and P.E. teachers for grades fifth through twelfth, establishing Margaret Keating Elementary School in Klamath as a magnet school for the Yurok Tribe, charging transportation fees for sports and increasing recycling efforts. Dave Bokor, an algebra teacher at Del Norte High School, asked the district and school board to seriously take those suggestions into consideration and determine how much money those options could save. “There are lots of cuts to look at,” he said. “I’m requesting you look at those cuts furthest from our kids.”
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