Reed: No Rush To Address Budget Reductions

By Jeff White

In the wake of the Legislative Council’s decision this week to pare down the school district’s budget by $500,000, Superintendent of Schools John R. Reed made a simple statement to the Board of Education Wednesday night: wait to address the budget cuts.

Dr Reed emphasized that there was no need to rush to address the council’s latest cuts to next year’s proposed operating budget when there were still issues surrounding the district’s current spending plan.

In particular, there are areas in the school system’s current budget where expenses have exceeded what was initially forecasted, most notably in the areas of out-of-district special education and the district’s self-funded health insurance.

Because the district has never had a contingency fund to dip into when costs exceed what is budgeted, traditionally it has had to filter money from other areas into the funds that have deficits.

In January, the district sought to do just that by placing a freeze on $220,000 in the current budget in the hopes of using that money to help the ailing health insurance and out-of-district special education funds. The $220,000 comes from expenses that were forecasted, but at the time of the freeze had not been incurred.

As a result of the current budget freeze, several capital projects in the budget of Dominic Posca, the district’s building and grounds supervisor, have been placed on hold.

By using the next month to take a close look at the problem spots in the current budget, Dr Reed hopes the district will be in a better position to look at next year’s budget.

“We have to work though this year’s budget and make sure we are in good shape,” the superintendent said Thursday morning. “[Waiting] gives us another month to look at next year’s estimates. There’s no reason to rush; we can do it in June, and that gives us more time to study our options.”

Director of Business Ron Bienkowski reassured the school board that the district, thanks to the budget freeze, would not end the current fiscal year in the red. “I think we are going to be in good shape,” he said.

Dr Reed told the Board of Education Wednesday night that $500,000 that the council cut from the district’s spending plan could be addressed as early as its June meeting, or perhaps as late as a July meeting.

“We have a very complex decision before us, which is not going to be able to be reduced to easy solutions in terms of reducing [next year’s] budget,” Dr Reed told the school board. “We have a lot of issues that are unresolved this year. Until we can work through the issues in the current year’s budget, I won’t want to make recommendations of how we are going to reduce [next year’s budget] by $500,000.”

The fact that the district would eventually have to look at ways to go along with the council’s budget reductions had some residents Wednesday night concerned that budget cuts would mean teacher cuts.

“I’m afraid that the Board of Education will take the budget cuts out of teacher salaries,” a concerned Mark Malier of Great Ring Road said during public participation. “If we need to cut things, there are other things that are not as basic to education.”

The superintendent tried to reassure the public that they would have to trust the district’s judgements on how to reduce next year’s budget by the determined amount.

However, Dr Reed commented that the $500,000 of additional cuts would not come without the district “taking a step backwards.”

He said that there was “no possibility” of absorbing the $500,000 reduction without hardships to the school system.