The list of budget suggestions and cuts a citizen advisory committee presented to the Carbon County School District No. 2 School Board Tuesday evening was two-fold.
The report, presented by Encampment resident and former representative of Carbon County, Jeb Steward, provided a list of suggestions for cuts rather than cutting personnel. The report also presented specific cuts for Encampment School to save the full-time art teaching position, which was threatened about a month ago after Encampment art teacher Pam Kraft announced her retirement.
“The goal of our committee was to provide a list of alternatives to you for other budget reductions as you look to next year, as well as staff realignments,” Steward said in the meeting. “I think we have lived up to expectations to provide a reasonable list of alternatives to consider going forward in these challenging times.”
District-wide, the committee recommended several cuts in health insurance, activities and food services, all identified as areas within the budget that are overspent.
The committee recommended cutting about $550,000 from the specific areas, according to the report.
Committee report
In health insurance, the committee recommended a 15 percent staff contribution for health insurance premiums, which are currently completely covered by the district. The committee recommended cutting $150,000 from health insurance.
In food services, the committee recommended a 40-to-50-cent raise per meal provided by the school district. In other parts of the report, it recommends cutting some meal programs. The committee recommended the school board cut about $250,000 from food services.
In activities, the committee recommended a “pay-to-play” fee per student per year. The committee also recommended students pay for some of their own meals and the district limit some overnight trips. The committee recommended the district cut at least $150,000 from the budget.
The report also identified some other areas where the district could apply some creative thinking to the budget. However, Steward said the school board may still have to cut staff.
“We all recognized that realignment of staff to match your revenues may be an option you will have to consider in the future,” he said.
Superintendent’s report
Superintendent Bob Gates said the citizen advisory committee was not far off the mark from what the district had come up with, as far as alternatives for budget cuts.
“I visited with various groups across the district to take a good, hard look at the budget and see what we could do to the areas where we are spending more than what we are funded for,” Gates said.
In Gates’ report, he identified the school district could save about $70,000 in health insurance. He said the board would vote on the cut in May.
Gates also suggested the “pay-to-play” idea. In his report in Tuesday’s meeting, Gates said the district should adopt a $50 fee for high school students and a $25 fee for junior high students if they wanted to participate in activities. Gates also suggested the district cut some overnight trips and some paid meals for students who participate in activities. Gates’ suggested cuts in activities would equal about $20,000, he said.
Gates, in his report, also suggested the school district raise the price on meals and rearrange some staffing. Gates estimated the district could save about $60,000 in food services.
Gates presented some other areas where the district could cut, one being staff. Gates did not go into detail of what positions would be cut, but did say staff realignment would save the district $110,000.
Overall, Gates estimated his list of cuts could save the district about $330,000, but it is still not enough.
“My projections over the next two years, we are going to be looking at cuts of $500,000,” Gates said. “We are about three-fifths of the way there, if we move forward with these suggestions.”
Saving a teacher
Although staff cuts in CCSD 2 may be unavoidable in the future, Steward and other committee members submitted a detailed list of cuts that could be made to save the fulltime art teaching position at Encampment School.
Overall, the committee found $41,375 in the Encampment School budget that could possibly be allocated to preserve teaching positions.
In the committee’s report, it suggested cutting $23,000 in food services using similar methods outlined in its district-wide proposal.
The committee also suggested a $17,875 cut in Encampment School activities. More specifically, the committee suggested cutting all assistant coaches from junior high activities, resulting in a $6,000 savings, according to the report. The committee also suggested, if a “pay-to play” fee was adopted by the school district, Encampment students would pay double whatever other students would pay.
“We thought we would go one step further,” Steward said. “We would pay that much more to off-set the costs where we are over in activities.”
The committee also recommended various fundraisers in Encampment like the cake auction that could potentially raise $10,000. In a previous meeting, Thad York, a member of the committee, said he would offset any costs in the amount of $10,000 if fundraisers did not suffice.
The last Encampment budget recommendation was to cut the print version of the newsletter at Encampment, resulting in a modest saving of $500.
After Steward presented the recommendations, he thanked the board. Steward then asked “What next?”
The board did not vote on the budgetary recommendations at Tuesday’s meeting, but will consider the cuts and vote on individual line items at different times. Board Chairman Greg Bartlett suggested holding a workshop meeting to take a close look at the proposed changes.
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