12/05/08
(updated 12/05/08)
School Board braces for anticipated state funding curtailment
The School Board has scheduled a special meeting to plan for how it will meet a $422,000 budget shortfall expected as a result of Gov. John Baldacci's proposed budget curtailment plan.
The special meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 7:30 a.m. at the Town Hall.
(This is a change from previously scheduled date) At their meeting Dec. 2, the board listened to Superintendent Alan Hawkins repeat the news that came from Augusta last month of an anticipated $27 million budget curtailment to the Department of Education to make up for projected revenue shortfalls.
While the governor has called for a curtailment, Hawkins said implementation would require a vote of the Legisltature, which is expected to happen this month.
Based on a formula weighing local property values, Cape Elizabeth's share of the curtailment is $421,572, 13.7 percent of its $3 million allocation of general purpose aid to education for 2008-09.
"Are there ways we can get out of the box?" Hawkins asked rhetorically, calling for ideas on how the School Department will address the anticipated revenue shortfall.
A freeze on spending for supplies and equipment has been in effect for several weeks, but because much of those lines were used at the beginning of the school year, less than $100,000 of the School Department's $19.8 million budget might be saved, Hawkins said. Another area that has been frozen is staff development, saving about $20,000, Hawkins said.
While board members agreed that a separate budget meeting was necessary to reach concensus and provide direction, many began mulling ideas at their Dec. 2 meeting. Among suggestions were to use the School Department's $70,000 contingency fund, and to look into whether undesignated fund balance could be used. Undesignated fund balance represents revenues not spent or budgeted from the previous year. At the end of the fiscal year June 30, 2008, the School Department's undesignated fund balance was $248,946.
Another suggestion was to reopen contract negotiations with teachers and other bargaining units. "I for one would rather pay $25 more a week for my Blue Cross than lose my job," said School Board member Peter Cotter. Layoffs seemed to be a last resort for School Board members, especially since state law requires a 90-day notice before dismissing teachers. That would take the board well into April before any savings were realized.
Other suggestions included approaching suppliers of heating fuel and other energy sources to recoup some of the savings resulting from the dropping price of energy this fall.
Another suggestion, met with mixed feelings among board members, was to look into privatizing education in Cape Elizabeth.
"We are being told what to do (by the state), but we keep getting our money pulled," said board member Rebecca Millett, chairman of the board's finance committee. General feeling among the board was that any independence realized by privatization was not worth losing all of Cape Elizabeth's $3 million state subsidy. They did, however, agree that the board's finance committee should make initial inquiries into the legality and feasibility of privatization, as long as those inquiries did not take too much of the board's time.
Board member Peter Cotter also called for the School Department to make honest revenue projections before beginning to build its 2009-10 budget. "We've never had to do a revenue based budget before. Now I think we have to," Cotter said.
School officials have discussed the curtailment threat with the municipal government, which may be able to help with the shortfall, Hawkins said.
The Dec. 8 meeting of the town council includes an agenda item requesting the chairmen of the council and its finance committee to meet with their counterparts on the School Board to review the status of the curtailment, and to discuss "how the town may cooperatively assist the School Department should the proposed curtailment be implemented." The agenda also calls for the council's Finance Committee to make a recommendation on the curtailment at the Jan. 12, 2009 Town Council meeting
Town Manager Michael McGovern has recommended that the council authorize $200,000 of the town's undesignated fund balance to be transferred to the School Department's undesignated fund balance. The transfer is intended to serve as a buffer toward anticipated curtailments, McGovern said in a telephone interview.
"Sort of a bridge for the School Department to give them time to consider the full impact," he said.
Throughout the Dec. 2 School Board meeting, Hawkins stressed the difficult decisions the board will need to make this year and next. "This is the first time in my 41 years in education that we've been in this situation," he told the board.
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