School Board Lowers Millage, Furloughs

A request by Douglas County Board of Education member D.T. Jackson of District 2 to give Douglas County School System employees two fewer furlough days instead of just one gained traction and finally approval during a special called school board meeting Wednesday night.

Although board members Dr. Sam Haskell of District 4, Janet Kelley of District 3 and Mike Miller of District 1 were in favor of a more cautious approach to reducing the five previously approved furlough days by one day and coming back later to reduce another day, if the funds were available, Jackson was adamant.

“I’d rather have the two furlough days now,” Jackson said to board members.

Board Chair Jeff Morris of District 5 also supported Jackson’s request to trim the number of scheduled furlough days for all 190-day and over employees to three days.

“I just want to make sure we don’t have to come back and amend it,” Kelley said of the furlough reduction, if the need arose during the 2011-12 school year.

District Chief Financial Officer Kay Turner had told the board previously in the meeting that changing the furlough days in the middle of the year would be a “very time consuming” task because it’s a “manual process.” She estimated it would take one person about a week or 30-40 hours to calculate the adjustments for the district’s 3,000 full-time employees.

Knowing the hardship changing the number of furlough days during the school year could have on Turner’s department, Kelley then asked Turner if she was comfortable with dropping the five previously adopted furlough days to three.

“I’m comfortable with the budget we’re proposing,” Turner responded.

After hearing Turner’s answer and Haskell verifying with Turner that the furlough reduction was “doable,” the board voted 5-0 to reduce the number of needed furlough days to three.

In addition to amending the previously adopted Fiscal Year 2012 budget approved June 20, the board also unanimously approved lowering the school system’s millage rate from the state maximum of 20 mills to 19.85 mills for its maintenance and operations and the bond millage from 4.1 to 3.1 mills.

The total school system millage rate dropped from 24.1 mills to 22.95.

“A reduction in the millage rates and fewer furlough days will be possible since the Douglas County Tax Digest declined 3.88 percent instead of the 7 percent originally anticipated by the Tax Commission Office,” Superintendent Gordon Pritz said. “We are very happy to see a much smaller decline this year than the 7 percent anticipated or the 15 percent decline last year.”

Morris and Jackson were all smiles in the parking lot of the district’s central administrative offices following the 34-minute meeting, which attracted only one community member.

“It’s good news all around,” Morris said. “Teachers and taxpayers will all be happy.”

“I just think it’s the right way to do it. It’s positive and it motivates,” said Jackson, who has worked more than 38 years in the financial recovery industry. “If we find ourselves where we can’t extend the two furloughs, then we’ll go back, but nine times out of 10 we won’t do that. We’ll find somewhere else to cut.”

Even with the reductions to the millage rates and furlough days, Pritz said the district will remain “very conservative” in its spending.

“While the smaller decline in the tax digest this year is very helpful, we must keep in mind that there has (been) an overall decline in most revenue sources during the last few years that has deeply impacted us,” he said. “The school system must continue to be very diligent regarding all expenditures.”

The amended total FY 2012 Douglas County School System budget, from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, is $215,760,350. The estimated revenues include:

• $87,925,997 from local taxes ,
• $3,968,949 from other local sources,
• $105,523,098 from state sources,
• $18,342,306 from federal sources.