How Governor Culver’s cuts will affect East Sac School

It’s not new news that Governor Culver has handed out a 10% across the board (ATB) cut at every level throughout the state. Superintendant Barb Kruthoff held a discussion about the effect the ATB cuts would have on the districts at the October 19, 2009 joint school board meeting.

She sent a major talking points summary of the school’s position to the school board members the night the ATB cut was announce. The following is a copy of that email:







SAC

Total Weighted Enrollment-522.8

FY 2010 State Aid-$2,133,495

(Beginning undesignated reserve balance - $478,987)

Across the board cut-$214,767



WLVA

Total Weighted Enrollment-605.1

FY 2010 State Aid-$2,199,690

(Beginning undesignated reserve balance - $443,659)

Across the board cut -$248,585



Recommendation for both Sac & WLVA:



1. We made major reductions last year and have only the staff we need to run the programs we have.

2. We should not panic as each district has the reserves to handle the cuts.

3. BUT....when we prepare the new budget in March both districts should consider Cash Reserve Levies. This means moving more responsibility from state aid to local taxes.



(to this email, I added the beginning undesignated reserve balance line which contains the dollar amount of the initial fund balance from which the cuts will come to give you, the reader, some perspective. I used “()” to designate the lines that I added)

The conversation began with Ms. Kruthoff referencing a Des Moines Register article from the previous day that ran a series of charts detailing the beginning undesignated reserve fund balances or each school in the state and how much money would be cut from each of those. The exercise allowed her to contrast our two districts with other districts in the conference like Prairie Valley, a district that has received a $300,000 cut in funding… significant because unlike Sac and WLVA, they had a negative fund balance to begin with.

Because of the deep and controversial cuts the districts made last year, the school will be able to weather the Governor’s ATB cut without further loss of personnel and programs this year, but it will not be able to withstand another round of cuts without having to make hard decisions about what employees will be cut next, or worse which programs to cut.

If there is a further downturn in the next fiscal year, the first employees to go will be the at-will employees… bus drivers, teacher associates, secretaries, custodians, etc... Unless the schools do what WLVA Board President Chuck Brotherton has been advocating for the last couple of years… raise taxes.

According to the Superintendant, the school staff is stretched as thin as they can go. If any more staff are compromised, it will begin affecting the functionality of programs and classes.



On the afternoon of October 19, 2009, Barb Kruthoff, Chuck Brotherton, and Sac School Board President Shirley Phillips met for their regular meeting to go over that evening’s agenda. During that meeting they explored the decisions that they will have to make in the next month. They discussed the steps, (raising taxes) the boards would be willing to take in order to maintain the level of education that East Sac County is able to provide.

Besides money saving programs like the innovative calendar, and saving money by discontinuing the hard copy of the newsletter, Superintendant Kruthoff has also asked all staff to use as little paper as possible, shutting down equipment when not in use, making the bus routes as efficient as possible, and getting prices from 3 or 4 different places before buying technology.

The newsletter was a particularly expensive item costing $22,000 per year. It is now a digital only publication with a “subscription” price attached to delivery of the physical product to district members.



When asked for comments, several members of the boards responded.



John Kraft, the business manager for the school said, “The across the board cuts were for cash only, not spending authority, which is a big deal because it’s also more saying, “we expect you to shift the burden to the local level from the state… if they were really saying spend less money, then they would have taken away the spending authority also.”



Chuck Brotherton said, “I think we have two responsibilities; one is to be good stewards of the public’s money, the other one is to educate the children and if that means that we have to ask the people for more money to support education, we’ll have to do that. We’re not asking our people for too much money at this point in my estimation I think that most anyone who is proud of the school that they are supporting now will be happy to support it further in these times …I will work towards that end, that we ask our people for more money.”



Shirley Phillips, turning to Barb Kruthoff said, “And as you said before, we have enough money to get through this year, we’re just going to have to tighten our belt for next year …maybe we could ask the staff if they could help us on cost cutting measures or something that might help us even if it’s hundreds of dollars.”

Ms. Kruthoff gestured to a dog-eared folder in front of her and responded “I think in this folder I have those because we did that last year.”

Veteran Sac School Board Director, Brent Wilhelm asked, “Isn’t the newsletter one of [those ideas]?”

“Yep,” replied Ms. Kruthoff, “the newsletter actually came from …a staff member.”



Sac School board Vice President Dave Sands said, ““The comment that I would make to this is sort of …back door. I really think that the legislators this year, and there are many things that I question now looking back, they thought that was a priority and now we’re taking it out on the kids. It’s sort of sad that they have the priorities in the wrong spot in my mind.”

Shirley Phillips responded saying, “the governor announced that he wanted to have everybody use all their reserves, I don’t know what he thought those schools were supposed to do that didn’t have a reserve, so.”

Chuck Brotherton chuckled and said, “I could talk about the governor but I won’t.”



Ending the discussion on a cautionary note, Chuck Brotherton said, “We can find our way through it, but …we’ve been dealt a serious blow here and …we’re just going to have to be a little more vigilant about how we do things, as if we already haven’t been that way”



QUESTIONS:

1. Because the Superintendant is an at-will employee, will the three members of the Anti-East Sac County board follow through on their elector’s wishes and angle for a way to fire Superintendant Barb Kruthoff in the coming year?

2. What programs or classes do the school boards value the most? The least?

3. How concerned with saving money are President Phillips and Vice President Sands if they demonstrate a willingness to spend extra taxpayer money holding duplicate meetings in separate places at separate times?

4. How high will taxes need to be raised in order to make up for the ATB cut?