9-R facing unkind cuts
District leaders optimistic despite budget trimming
Funding
for art and music classes has been decimated in school districts
throughout the state, but Durango schools Superintendent Daniel
Snowberger says that won’t happen here. On Tuesday, Needham Elementary
School art teacher Karen Patrum assists fifth-grade students with their
projects. From left are students Ainsley Haggart, Brennan Wolf and Amira
Aquarian.
By Chase Olivarius-Mcallister
Herald staff writer
While
federal largesse is a given of many tax debates, it’s difficult to make
a case for government overspending in Durango School District 9-R,
which this year is facing a $1.6 million deficit.
This year’s budget is $37 million, down from about $42 million in 2009.
The problem is where to go from here.
“We’ve already cut so much,” school board member Stephanie Moran said after her re-election.
Indeed,
in the last five years, Superintendent Daniel Snowberger said, the
district already had lost $4.5 million in revenues as a result of the
recession. That necessitated painful downsizing despite passage in 2010
of a mill-levy increase that would raise $3.2 million annually, which
helped mute the sucking sound of critical academic programs, technology
and academic staff that otherwise were headed down the drain.
Whittling the baby
According
to the Hebrew Bible, when two women claimed an infant as their own,
King Solomon identified the true mother by offering to cut the baby in
half. The true mother, according to the parable, immediately disavowed
her claim to the baby, hoping to keep it alive.
Financially,
Durango School District 9-R finds itself in a similar position to the
true mother, except that it can’t give up the baby.
So, going forward, how will it further split the baby, while keeping education alive?
A
$1.6 million deficit is significant, district spokeswoman Julie Popp
said. But it would have been $3.5 million had the district not already
made drastic cuts last year.
What else can it cut?
“I
don’t want hysteria,” said Snowberger, saying the district would not
close schools, shrink preschool options or decimate art and music
programs.
“But that’s the hard
part,” he said in an interview. “There is no clear area where we can go,
‘Gosh, let’s cut all these things.’”
Since
he took the reins as superintendent last year, the district has slashed
$500,000 from the central office, largely by not replacing departing
staff members.
It has reorganized
its special-needs program, cut a few staff members and teachers aides,
started an in-house custodial program and instituted a long-term
energy-savings plan – all the while seeing state contributions to
education plummet.
Just five years
ago, the district had about $7,100 in per-pupil funding, the
all-significant denominator of school financing. Now, it’s about $6,500.
The
district is highly aware that something has to give. Though it still is
waiting to hear from the state Legislature about what money it can
expect in the 2014-15 school year,
Snowberger already is in the middle
of a listening tour.
Parents ask priorities
At
a meeting about the budget with about 25 parents just a few days ahead
of the November election, Snowberger asked them to identify their
priorities.
“Schools’ financing is based on a principle that’s unstable,” he said.
How did they feel about cutting after-school programs versus busing?
What was more important: maintaining a low teacher-student ratio or ensuring teacher salaries remain competitive?
At
that point, parents often rejected the premise, complaining it wasn’t
fair to compare art education with transport to outlying schools.
A
more recent meeting about the budget at Park Elementary School was held
after Amendment 66 – which would have increased school funding – failed
decisively at the ballot box. The meeting was crowded with almost 60
teachers, district staff, parents and school board members.
Snowberger
said the district was at a point where there was no budgetary fat to
trim, and further inroads into spending likely would require whittling
away at more fundamental expenditures.
He said the majority of the district’s budget – 69 percent – goes to teachers’ salaries and benefits.
He said the conundrum was that the district finally had achieved its goal of raising salaries to a competitive level.
Average pay $48,123
In
2012-13, average teacher pay in Durango rose to $48,123. In Bayfield,
it was $42,189; Ignacio, $41,349; Mancos, $36,285; Archuleta County,
$44,831; and Montezuma-Cortez, $37,458, according to Durango School
District. Throughout the recession, the district fought to keep teacher
salaries competitive, freezing salaries only once in the last five
years.
“We’ve finally closed the revolving door on teaching staff,” Snowberger told the group at Park Elementary.
To maintain the district’s advantage in teacher pay, the district may have to hire fewer teachers going forward.
This
trade-off was not popular at the meeting, but Snowberger said he saw a
turning point during another budget meeting with parents at Needham
Elementary on Monday night.
He said parents talked about appropriate class sizes, not small class sizes.
Right now, the average kindergarten class has about 19 kids in it, and the average high
school class, about 25.
According
to district projections, if the average kindergarten class size
increased to 22 kids, and the average high school class to 27 kids, it
could save around $1.7 million.
If
class size decreased to 15 kids per kindergarten class and 23 kids per
high school class, it would cost the district an addition $2.2 million.
Snowberger
said at the Monday meeting that parents reacted to the district’s data,
saying,
“Size isn’t as big of an issue as ‘let’s make sure the kids who
need the support have it.’”
Photo by: SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald
Student-teacher
ratios may be affected by potential cuts to the District 9-R budget.
Riverview Elementary School fourth-grade student Ben Belt gets a
question answered Tuesday by teacher Elizabeth Miller as he and fellow
fourth-grader Mia Ciotti work on their multidisciplinary animal research
project. It incorporates science, technology and writing as well as
research and reasoning skills.
