School board work session

Wednesday night, the school board had a work session to discuss the draft 2009-10 draft budget with district officials. The draft is available at the Roeder Administration building, 1306 Dupont St. It's free.

I shared some details of the budget in an earlier post, but want to reiterate a few points:

• Revenue is down $580,000, or 0.6 percent, from 2008-09, not the projected $3 million to $5 million projected.

• It's a $100 million budget, with spending set at $1 million below revenue.

• The district has added to its “rainy day” fund, called the unreserved fund, so it is 4.4 percent of the overall budget. District policy calls for a reserve fund worth between 3 percent and 5 percent of the budget.

• The district is hiring 500 full-time equivalent basic education teachers, cutting only 4.5 FTE positions.

• The district went ahead with $2.5 million in spending cuts.

• In previous years, the district has used the rainy day fund (see media links at right)for discretionary items; you would think that keeping its schools open and running would be worth using the rainy day fund, especially when the fund would remain at a very healthy level.

Why is the school district and board keeping a school closed when it doesn't have to? It's hands are NOT tied --- rainy day funds are for days like this.