Board explores ways to cut deficit
It wasn't a scientific survey, but some results are loud and clear from Kalispell Public Schools' recent poll about how to alleviate a projected deficit in next year's budget.
Kalispell school board trustees have at their last two meetings examined data from the online survey that 855 people took last month. The district had sought input on how to deal with the minimum $500,000 shortfall it anticipates in 2011-12.
While the district will not base its budget cuts solely on the poll, school officials have said the survey will be taken into account.
Trustee Brad Eldredge collated data from the survey to find points of consensus. He arranged answers into "top 10" lists - primary recommendations by parents, district staff, and community members without children in Kalispell schools.
The three groups agreed on some money-saving options presented in the survey:
• When it saves money, use online materials instead of textbooks.
• Reduce energy costs by turning off lights and electronic equipment, replacing inefficient windows and turning down the thermostat.
• Sell the former Edgerton School building that now serves as the district's central warehouse and find ways to replace the warehouse with online purchasing.
• Make students pay for their own meals when they travel for sports and activities. During post-season contests, the Booster Club pays for first-day meals and the district's activity budget covers second-day meals. Fundraising and Booster Club donations cover regular season first-day meals.
Other answers varied according to who took the survey. Parents and community members supported reductions in central office administration. Community members also supported reducing the number of high school and elementary administrators.
Superintendent Darlene Schottle provided information Tuesday about the number of administrators in Kalispell's high schools versus in other Class AA districts.
The district is about average when it comes to building administrators, with four per school. Billings, the state's largest school district, averages five administrators in each of its three high schools. Bozeman has six administrators in its high school and Butte, the state's smallest Class AA district, has five building administrators.
When it comes to the central office, Kalispell has fewer administrators than any other Class AA district.
Kalispell has six administrators. Butte has seven. Bozeman has the equivalent of 9.5. Missoula has more than any other district, with 13.
Schottle still proposes central office staff reductions. At Tuesday's special meeting, she presented first- and second-tier budget cut recommendations that could help the district eliminate its shortfall.
Cutting staff could save $30,000 next year; deeper cuts and a reduction in services could bring an additional $70,000 - or even up to $100,000 - in savings. The downside is that school sites will have to take on some of the duties the central office has covered, Schottle said.
Some proposals match up with answers favored by survey-takers. The district aims to save $20,000 in its elementary budget with energy savings, which primarily will occur through the buildings' new central heat control system. New energy-efficient windows, paid for with federal stimulus money, and making sure lights, computers and other electronics are turned off also will save money, Schottle said.
The high school budget will see $50,000 in energy savings primarily because of the biomass boiler at Glacier High School, she said. Energy costs at Glacier are about half the costs at Flathead.
Proposed budget reductions also call for using program retention funds, which past school boards set aside for use during tough times. Proposed budget reductions include possibly using $231,000 of program retention funds to balance the high school budget.
If the district needs to make deeper cuts - if the Legislature allots less than anticipated for school budgets or if the building reserve levy request fails next week - trustees could decide to dip further into those retention funds.
Eldredge said he would rather the district use its savings before asking voters to approve an operational levy.
"I think it's a rainy-day fund, and it's a rainy day," he said. "It's hard to ask the public to raise their taxes when we have money in the bank."
But some trustees favored saving some program retention funds for the following year, when the budget could be even worse.
"I'm OK with using retention funds, but we should still make cuts," Frank Miller said. "If we can make cuts in other areas and that prevents us from having to use all of our retention funds this year, we can use them next year and [ask voters for] a lower [operational] levy."
The trouble with saving retention funds, Ivan Lorentzen said, is that legislators have indicated they will not increase state funding as long as schools have money to spend.
"The only way to counter the argument is to spend the savings," he said. "That puts us completely vulnerable to the winds in Helena, which I really don't like to be in that position."
Trustees did not make any decisions about budget cuts at Tuesday's meeting, preferring instead to wait for the results of next week's building reserve levy election. If voters deny the request, which would levy $6 million over five years, the district will have to cut an additional $433,000 from the general fund budget to cover necessary building and technology maintenance.
Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.