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The First Cut is the Deepest, Part Two |
Bill Hudson | 2/5/10
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Read Part One
As Archuleta School District superintendent Mark DeVoti and his staff look at ways to resolve a possible $2.3 million in funding cuts over the next two years, the options fall into two basic categories.
The first category consists of actions the district can take on its own, and include reductions in many areas: staff, programs, operations, materials, and paychecks.
The second category includes raising fees and begging the local voters for financial help. In appears, however, that right at the moment the local voters are themselves not doing terribly well, financially.
The Town of Pagosa Springs recently raised its sewer fees by 50 percent, to help fund a new sewer plant that they later voted not to build. The increased fees have remained, however.
The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District, better known as PAWSD, also increased its fees recently — including fees of $28,000 or more for new, larger residential homes — in order to build a new 30,000 acre-foot reservoir in Dry Gulch which it now appears will not be needed due to a local decline in population. But the increased fees have remained in place.
 The school district has very limited opportunity to raise fees, since its essential charge is to provide free education to all children, regardless of income. Conceivably, the district could charge for bus service — but Colorado schools are prohibited from charging certain fees to a student that receives free or reduced lunches, and that includes about half of all Pagosa Springs students.
Going to the local county voters to ask for more tax money for schools probably has limited chance of success, considering the current economy.
During our discussion with Mark DeVoti on Wednesday, Daily Post writer Glenn Walsh and I talked with Mark about one potential savings measure that doesn’t depend on new funding — a switch, for the 2010-2011 academic year, to a four-day school week.
This topic was already explored by the School Board last year, when much smaller budget reductions were contemplated. At that time, the board felt that the savings were not significant enough to justify the stress that would fall upon families — now forced to find daycare for their children each Friday when school is not in session.
A projected $2.3 million shortfall over the next two years is apparently making every possible type of savings more attractive.
Glenn suggested that reducing the staff work-week by 20 percent — from five days to four days — might tie in well with a reduction in salaries. Would teachers accept, perhaps, a 5 to 10 percent cut in pay if they had to work one less day each week?
We all know that many industries all across America have seen massive layoffs, and that it’s not uncommon to see company employees agreeing to wage reductions, as a trade-off, in order to prevent employee layoffs. Sometimes, however, even across-the-board wage reductions are not enough to prevent job loss. In the private sector, when the money is not there, people lose their jobs. It’s pretty simple.
In the public sector — in education and government — it’s a more common sight to see a bureaucracy, or public institution, cut services in order to save employee positions. When revenues are not directly tied to services provided and creation of products — as they are in the private sector — cutting back on services to the public can help reduce expenditures while preserving staff positions.
We see a culture, in the public sector, where institutions are sometimes more loyal to their employees than to the public they supposedly serve.
No one wants to lay off employees; in the public sector, there are sometimes ways around that problem. Cutting the school week to four days would seemingly fit such an approach. In order to save jobs, the school district might choose to shuffle the daily care and instruction of children back onto parents’ shoulders, for an additional one day per week. That reduces the school’s obligations by about 20 percent — and increases the parents’ responsibilities by 50 percent.
Last year, when the four-day week was discussed as a cost-cutting measure, the School Board was looking at the savings to be gained by closing four buildings every Friday — in other words, mainly at savings in heating costs and maintenance.
There was no discussion last year about tying a shorter work-week to corresponding salary reductions.
This year, it appears that the Intermediate School building is scheduled to be vacated for the 2010-2011 school year — by moving the fifth grade back to the Elementary School, and moving the sixth graders into the Junior High. Seemingly, such a move would greatly reduce the fiscal benefits of closing the schools every Friday — since one of the four buildings would be closed all week long anyway.
As I noted yesterday, the school district is looking at numerous options, as it faces a continuing decline in state funding — and superintendent Mark DeVoti hopes the public will attend next Tuesday’s School Board meeting to hear the discussions there.
I’m not clear, at this point, how much input the public will be allowed to offer at that meeting.
But the school closures and the four-day school week are not the only suggestions on the cost-cutting table — even if they appear to be important ones.
Mark talked about some additional ideas, as we chatted in his office Wednesday.
How might the budget crisis affect extra-curricular athletics programs, for example?
Read Part Three... |
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