In the meantime, Arlene Martinez of the Morning Call reported today from the meeting (read the article here) that the "Nazareth District Spending is Unsustainable" according to the Audit and Finance Committees of the School Board.
Needless to say, I've been thumping on the issue of school spending on this site and these same concerns appear to now be expressed by this committee of the school board.
Specific issues raised by the committee:
- The use of the fund balance (also known as the surplus) to cover budget shortfalls.
- Under state law NASD must put the proposed tax increase to voters in a referendum if the increase exceeds 4.2%, and the NASD is at "high risk" of doing so.
- Projecting deficits of $1.3 and $2.3 million with the 4.2% annual tax increase for the next two budget years (and this is based on the hiring freeze implemented by the Board last month, meaning the figure will go higher).
- A high debt load that will become even higher with proposed new construction of a Middle School.
It is also reported that a revised budget will be presented on January 22 as well.
In reading about the use of the surplus, I recalled and checked the proposed budget to confirm that the 2007-2008 budget shows an expenditure for Budgetary Reserve (same as fund balance?) for $1,378,000. In prior year the NASD did not allocate money for this line item. It seems strange that we would spend money to put in reserve at a time when we are looking at a 10% increase and have placed a temporary hiring freeze.
The real problem will come when the NASD is forced to make cuts. The easiest thing to do is cut student related services or activities, because they can achieve two goals - eliminate a cost in a big chunk to present to the Board, while gathering community support for a tax hike to keep it included.
The harder thing to do is look at your spending line by line and make cuts that don't directly impact student learning or activities. Prioritize spending in areas that are not related to k-12. And possibly find additional revenue through increased fees.
The Reserve line item is one big example of this. A smaller example is "Community Services". I don't know what goes into this line item, but prior to 2002 the cost was between $32,000 and $36,000. Today the cost is at $145,000. Support services, administration, transportation, these are the areas we need to focus on cutting spending.
It will be interesting to see what approach the administration takes with the revised budget.
1 comment:
I have posted before, and will again, that NASD needs to bring in an outside agency that can go through the entire district and figure out how to cut cost.
The district is in effect a business, and we the taxpayers are the shareholders in it. The only difference is the "CEO and Board" are not held to the same standards as a publicly traded corporation.
I am sure there are many areas within the district that can be optimized from a cost perspective. They may not individually have high returns, but if you find enough of them, it starts to add up. This practice has been done to death in the corporate world for years now with great success.
Even as a non-expert, I can see many areas where cost savings could be achieved.
Buses - way to many that are utilized at levels way below 100%. Combining routes would lower the number of buses needed and lower our costs. Also, reset the boundaries so the students are going to the elementary school closest to them eliminating longer bus routes.
Lunch - I know when I was in school, we had a choice of one meal per day. My guess is that there is a lot of food that is tossed at the end of each day knowing they have to prepare so much of each meal to accomodate all the children.
Paper Progress Reports - Although this can't be eliminated completely, those of us that have internet access and have registered for the Parent Portal should be taken off the print distribution. This would eliminate the cost of printing, paper and postage three times a year. Those not registered on the Parent Portal would still receive paper reports.
I am sure that a skilled independent consultant (with no ties to Nazareth or NASD) could find many items like these and come up with ways to lower or eliminate costs associated with them. The only drawback is that more than likely, people will lose jobs, but in reality, this is the only way we could see true reform.
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