More School Cuts Coming

WAITSBURG - The Waitsburg School Board passed a conservative budget for the 2012-13 school year last Monday night reflecting staff cuts made in the spring and officials warned that more cuts will be on the table this year.

The school board unanimously approved a $4.1 mil- lion budget for 2012-13. The general fund that pays for everything but debt service, capital projects, transportation and the Associated Stu- dent Body, was approved at $3,574,175 - down $153,261 from school year 2011-12. Board members Dr. Randy Pearson and Marilyn Johnson were absent.

A total of 3.5 full-time equivalent teaching posi- tions and 1.5 classified staff positions were eliminated in 2011-12 to help cover the district's deficit, caused by a decline in enrollment.

Superintendent Dr. Carol Clarke said last Monday night the district is planning for 278 full-time students in kindergarten through 12th grade in the coming school year, down from 305.5 stu- dents in 2011-12.

"We need to remember that our budget is determined by our enrollment," Clarke said.

She said even with the staffing cuts that were made last spring, the district will likely have to cut the budget more in the coming year to get the district operating in the black again.

"We weren't sure that it would be deep enough - and it wasn't," Clarke said. "But morale-wise, if we got much deeper we would be strug- gling."

The district staff members have heard that possibly eight new students may register in Waitsburg schools in the fall and may boost enroll- ment numbers to get the state revenues back up, she said. Clarke is expecting a large eight-grade class. However, she was notified last week that three children are mov- ing out of the district before the school year.

Clarke added the district has been trying to maintain a reserve fund in case of emer- gencies. Because of careful budgeting, she said the district ended the last school year with nearly $100,000 more in savings than ex- pected.

"We are conservative in our revenues and aggressive in our expenditures," she said. "But (enrollment) is a moving target."

School board Chairman Ross Hamann said the district staff members make an effort to anticipate expendi- tures at a high level and rev- enues at a low level for each school year to come out ahead.

"We do that on purpose," he said. "It's a model that has worked for us and kept us healthy."

If this budget goes ac- cording to plan for 2012-13, the district would have about 8.5 percent of its annual operating budget in reserves. Clarke said the 8.5 percent is strong, but not entirely com- fortable. And, the district still dipped into reserves in 2011- 2012 to make ends meet, said Board Member Greg Zuger. On Monday night he called the situation "disheartening."

He said the district is lucky that the budget picture isn't worse, but he said the district needs to notify staff members that the budget will need to be re-evaluated again for more cuts.

"We're a small district and we cannot go deeper into the red," Zuger said.

To evaluate what else can be cut, Clarke suggested look- ing at eliminating electives and programs that are not required by state or federal law.

"These are conversations we need to start having in November," Clarke said.