Shuffle helps balance budget

With a little creative shuffling, Helena Flats School has balanced its 2010-11 budget.

“We had about a $70,000 deficit, but we have moved things around, moved teachers around,” Principal Ann Minckler said. “We’re cutting back, but the way we’re reorganizing is going to be more efficient.”

That reorganization includes adding fifth-graders to the middle school schedule, a move that would free up one teacher, Kathy Bachrach, who previously taught fifth grade, and allow her to move into a counseling position, Minckler said.

Helena Flats’ lack of a full-time counselor has been a problem, she said. The move will help the school meet accreditation standards.

“The person who has been doing counseling is shared staff with Kalispell. We need more time than he’s able to give us,” Minckler said.

In addition to her counseling duties, Bachrach will be the school’s gifted and talented specialist and the coordinator for Helena Flats’ Olweus anti-bullying program.

“That’s one of the things that’s kind of fallen by the wayside this year: Olweus,” Minckler said. “We’ve missed it this year.”

In the past, teachers may have taught more than one subject, but starting next fall, Helena Flats will have “a true, departmentalized middle school,” Minckler said.

Under the reorganization, fifth-graders won’t actually change classes, Minckler said. They will have their own classroom and teachers will go to them.

The four instructors teaching core subjects — math, science, communication arts and social studies — will rotate to the fifth-grade classrooms but also will have their own rooms. Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders will switch classrooms like a traditional junior high.

Fifth-graders also will be put on the electives schedule for the first time next year, and elective classes will stretch from a quarter to a year.

Some electives might be offered once every four years, Minckler said, which means students in every grade will have an opportunity to take those classes.

The biggest concern about the shuffle that Minckler has heard has been eliminating fifth-graders’ recess. But with 55-minute blocks for core classes, teachers will be able to build breaks into the day if students need down time, she said.

Minckler acknowledged that putting fifth-graders on the middle school schedule isn’t problem-free but said she thought it was the best possible solution to the school’s budget crunch.

“Scheduling will be a little tighter. There isn’t as much planning time. But it’s better that we give up planning time than lose jobs,” she said.

Not every job is safe, however. There have been layoffs.

“I don’t want to say that we’ve been overstaffed, but we’re cutting back to bare essentials,” Minckler said.

A half-time Title I position was eliminated because there wasn’t a need for that job next year, she said. The person who had that job will remain at Helena Flats as a part-time special education teacher and part-time aide.

That will be the only aide position at the school next year; the other six and three-quarters aide positions were eliminated.

“Those aides were hired when enrollment was up in the [230s or 240s]. As our enrollment declined, we kept them on,” Minckler said.

Releasing them doesn’t mean their jobs weren’t important or that the school didn’t appreciate their work, she said. “It’s just a luxury we can no longer afford.”

The cuts were important, Minckler added, considering the alternative: Asking taxpayers for help.

“We’re cutting back so that we don’t have to go to them for a levy this year. We know that they’re just as strapped as we are,” she said. “But I can’t promise next year we won’t have to go to the community for help.”

Running a levy will depend in part on enrollment next fall.

Declining enrollment is the reason Helena Flats had a budget deficit. The budget took a hit when the school’s enrollment declined for the third straight year in 2009-10. There were 210 students enrolled last fall, down from 236 in fall 2007.

State funding is largely determined by a district’s three-year enrollment average; when student populations shrink, school coffers follow suit.

The budget situation was further complicated when the rural schools health insurance cooperative to which Helena Flats belonged was quoted a 48 percent premium increase from the co-op’s carrier.

The cooperative decided this spring to switch carriers from the Montana Unified School Trust to Montana Schools Health and Welfare Plan, which is underwritten by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana.

The move will save Helena Flats about $40,000 over the next year.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.