time for a change in how this district does business.We need to run this budget as if it were our own household and our own wallet. When times are tight, it's time to give up the SeaBass in favor of a nice McDonald's Filet-o-fish.
How about 1 district office newspaper instead of one for upstairs and one for downstairs? Better yet...how about NO subscription. You want a paper to read? Bring one in from home like the rest of us.
A few of us pooled ideas and came up the following 22 suggestions for where to start carving up the 2009-10 budget.
- Use the $40,000 unspecified capital project budget
- Use the $100,000 District Office Remodel ( move finance downstairs and another department upstairs)...or as much as is unspent. Terry Shimek was right to question it - how much sense does this spending truly make?
- Use the remaining $83, 000 Microsoft settlement (2nd half).
- Ensure that ALL costs associated with the new High School and UMS are taken
from referendum dollars. (We've noticed several attempts to use general fund money). - Transfer some of fund balance from other "funds" (e.g.; food service has $500K of fund balance) to the General Fund (be sure it's not impossible to do so, rather than "never been done before") .
- Cut the $425/month stipend for the District Administrator.
- Unpaid furloughs for school district administration staff only
- Negotiate a repeal of administrator and Admin Support increases for 2009-10 (or furlough to make the difference).
- Freeze Admin and Admin support staff salaries for 2010-11.
- Reduce Administrative/Admin Support positions (e.g., Program Managers).
- No vehicle replacements for 2009-11 unless absolutely mission critical.
- Put off until 2011-12 any non-critical, non-safety related building [projects (paving, painting, roofing].
- $5,000 reduction in capital painting budget. Or...could we skip painting for a year?
- Unspecified amount of revenue in field and facilities rental fees. Where does this money go? How much revenue has been generated?
- Reduction in the SOAR remodeling project cost
- 75% funding for 2nd school liaison officer.
- Reduce custodial services in schools.
- Review athletic fees relative to area (Big 8?) and statewide fees as well as actual cost per student. Consider raising those fees which tend to be a liability to the general fund.
- Re-evaluate some elective classes...if any are significantly un-selected, consider not offering for a year or so.
- Allow class sizes to increase at all grade levels. Perhaps set a firm cap at 30 students.
- Reduce # of teacher aides where possible.
- LAST: cut teaching positions
That's our take.
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