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| District prioritizes possible cuts |
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| Written by Aaron Cedeño | |||
| Wednesday, 10 March 2010 09:00 | |||
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Slowly but surely, the muddled picture that is the Louisburg USD 416 budget for the 2010-2011 academic year is starting to become clear. In recent weeks, a list has been made available to the general public at board meetings and public forums, containing recommended suspensions to programs and personnel — as well as possible sources of additional income. Current legislation being discussed in Topeka could result in a reduction of as much as $600 to the state’s per-pupil funding of public education, which would in turn mean a $2 million loss in the budget for Louisburg schools. While they may not ultimately be that steep (a reduction of $300 per student would mean a loss of $1 million next year in Louisburg, for example), the likelihood of further cuts to some degree is high. Until Monday, the district’s budget priority list was merely a topic for discussion, but a survey recently administered to members of the Louisburg USD 416 Board of Education and administrators throughout the district asked them to rank the 80 included items according to priority. Once the results were tallied, items at the top were considered the lowest priority and, therefore, most likely to be cut. Or, in the case of additional revenue sources, most likely to be implemented. Some of those items included the closure of district facilities for one day a week in June and July ($32,000 in savings), the use of contingency funds equal to 20 percent of the current balance ($140,000 in additional revenue), closure of all buildings for seven days during winter break ($28,000 in savings) and the review of middle school activities to cut back on assistant coaching positions ($15,000 in savings). Items 60 to 80 on the list, and therefore considered to be of the highest priority, are licensed staff and classified staff positions — though classified staff positions do appear at numbers 53 and 55 through 57. As pointed out by Superintendent Sharon Zoellner during the meeting, if the current priority list were used as a guideline a cut of more than $1 million would be needed before the district was forced to cut staff positions. No official vote was taken on the matter Monday night. The priority list will be made available for public consumption via the school district’s Web site in the coming days, at www.usd416.org.
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