Forced to make budget reductions, Black River board presented with options to slash
Facing a potential deficit of over $800,000 for the coming school year, the Black River School District community held six focus groups sessions facilitated by the Impact Group.
There were two sessions via Zoom and four in-person meetings were held at Black River Elementary School.
“The main issue was the five-year forecast did not take into account expenses that were larger than expected,” said Treasurer Robert Kuehnle. “The supplies, purchased services and transfers-out were well over expected expenses.”
“Those expenses attributed to the district spending $821,000 more than expected,” he said. “The district operates on small margins, so with an unexpected increase in those expenses it significantly affected the district’s carry-over amount.”
Kuehnle said board members referred to the five-year forecast and the budget shortfall and asked Superintendent Chris Clark to balance the budget for next year.
“Therefore, the district is planning to cut roughly $850,000 from next year’s budget,” Kuehnle said.
Results of the survey findings were broken down into three key areas − community survey findings, staff survey insights and focus group discussions.
Community survey findings
Behavioral health specialists and counselors: 79.1% indicated maintaining the services is “Very Important” or “Important.”
School resource officer: 91.5% responded either “Very Important” or “Important.”
Class size: 86.32%, “Very Important” or “Important.”
Assistant coaches: 50.62% as “Not Important” or “Not at all Important.”
Preschool options: “Very Important” and “Important” (53.13%) and “Not Important” or “Not at all Important” (46.86%).
Staff survey and focus group results
Staff survey insights were broken down into what was considered important and areas that are not as high a value.
Class size and quality of education, presence of school resource officers and importance of full-time kindergarten were at the top of the list. Areas that did not have as high a value included mixed opinions on behavioral specialists, relocation of grade levels (eighth grade to high school, fifth grade to middle school) and assistant coaches.
With the focus group discussions bringing 202 people across nine sessions, the final report was broken down into two categories − staff perspectives and community insights.
Staff emphasized the importance of maintaining or reducing current class sizes to ensure a quality educational experience. Likewise, the community highlighted the importance of small class sizes.
Grade relocations. The idea of moving eighth graders to the high school was predominately opposed by the staff due to concerns about maturity and readiness. The community had the same feelings.
Unified school schedules. The staff expressed concerns over proposals to align school start and end times were met with concerns over safety, the practicality of managing large student groups and the potential loss of students to other districts. The community also expressed opposition to changing school schedules with age-mixing concerns on buses and the doubts about cost savings.
School resource officer. The presence of a SRO was deemed essential by both parties.
Behavioral health and counseling. Opinions were mixed regarding the effectiveness of behavioral health specialists and counselors by the staff, but the community had an overwhelming support of the importance of maintaining behavioral health specialists.
Budget reduction list
According to Kuehnle, the board plans to vote on staff reductions at the May 15 board meeting.
Presented to the Board of Education as a budget reduction list was:
Move eighth grade to the high school
Eliminate eight teaching positions
Create two part-time teaching positions
Not filling a teaching retirement position
Making accounts payable position part-time
Eliminate a principal position
Eliminate four para positions
Eliminate two food service positions
Eliminate one custodian position
Reduce bus drivers idle time - 15 min per day
Reduce Educational Service Center expenses by $100,000
Other food service reductions - roughly $20,000
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Black River board given list of proposed reductions to cut $821,000
