Douglas Schools Planning for $4.1M in Cuts

Utilizing 93 resignations or retirements, the Douglas County School System announced it would cut its expenditures by $4.1 million for 2011-12 school year at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting.

Chief Financial Officer Kay Turner unveiled the figures during her tentative budget presentation.

However, Superintendent Gordon Pritz was quick to caution that the budget is still about six weeks away from being significantly more certain and is based on zero enrollment growth.

“We’re not going to give you a real plan because it’s still just mid-April,” he told the board. “This process actually began in November (by) working with our staff with allotment and training.”

Turner said that the school system plans to decrease its instructional allotment by about 65 teachers in fiscal 2012. But she also noted that she did place 10 unassigned teachers in the allotment to provide for flexibility.

Paraprofessionals took the brunt of the allotment cuts with 25 fewer positions.

"Overall, it looks like there will be a decrease in the need for paraprofessionals for next year," Turner said.

School Board member Janet Kelley then asked if the school system had a place for all its paraprofessionals.

"I don’t know since a lot of those are placed based on student needs,” Chief of Staff David Whitfield said.

Pritz added that certified staff would be the focus of the school system since those employees are on contract. The district has until May 15 to issue teacher contracts.

The Douglas County School System’s tentative budget for fiscal 2012 has estimated revenues of $186,873,874, which includes $65,763,580 from local taxes, $500,000 from other local sources, $112,960,294 from state sources, and $7,650,000 from federal sources.

The three largest estimated expenditures for the school system are instruction with $131,602,697, maintenance and operations with $15,227,890, and school administration with $14,436,370. The estimated expenditures total $195,938,763.

Turner said that the school system should be $9,064,889 under expenditures in fiscal 2012, with a projected fund balance of $25 million on July 1. The balance would drop to $15,935,112 by the end of fiscal 2012.  

In addition to reducing instructional and paraprofessional allotments, Turner listed some other possible reductions to the budget. Eliminating Step increases would save $2.1 million, reducing employee workdays for $900,000, cutting the popular employee attendance incentive for $177,622, ending the 403(b) match program for $116,769, and reducing staff development funding for $400,000.

These possible reductions could save $3,694,391.

Catherine Magouyrk, associate superintendent of student achievement and leadership, told the board that the school system would also like to add the position of instructional technology coordinator. The position’s salary would be approximately $75,000 and benefits would be about $26,000.

Magouyrk said staff members currently are training each other in learning new technology. Beyond training, the new position would also pursue more technology grants.

“There really is a need,” she said. “We (are) using more technology.”