EACS board eyes $4M in budget cuts

Mar 3, 2010 — The News-Sentinel

Aaron Organ

Mar. 3, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- East Allen County Schools Superintendent Karyle Green told the school board Tuesday night the district needs to identify $4 million in cuts to multiple areas from its $92.9 million budget, with teachers' jobs and extracurricular activities among those on the chopping block.

Six hours of public work sessions will be held Tuesday and March 23 as board members study what the district can most effectively operate without, with a final vote March 30, Green said.

Green would not rule out the closing of schools -- namely Harding High School -- but said reducing the budget in every other area is an effort to keep that from happening.

"We need to make some changes," Green told the board. "Do we need to close a high school? I don't know that that's the change we need to make. I'm not about closing a high school. But if we want to keep five high schools, how do we structure that K-12 education in that community to keep it in that community, because I can say we cannot continue with 18 schools with this financial picture."

Green said once the board votes on cuts, they will be introduced as a districtwide referendum to the public in August, where it will be decided how EACS moves forward. If the cuts are not approved, Green said she'll lean on the public to come up with the cost to run the district like normal.

The cuts -- required after Gov. Mitch Daniels sliced $300 million from K-12 spending statewide -- would ease the district's now-strapped general fund, which sits at $9.6 million and which provides salaries and benefits for all employees. After boasting an operating balance of $28.5 million in 2008, EACS reported a decrease in revenues and an increase in costs, collectively contributing to dropping that balance by $3.8 million.

That number will skyrocket this year, EACS business manager Kirby Stahly said, as costs continue to rise for the district and state funding cuts take effect. The district had budgeted to receive $59.4 million from state funding, but EACS received $56.7 million after the cuts.

Stahly said projections show expenditures again exceeding revenues this year and in 2011.

So cuts are looming for EACS, which overbudgeted by some $10 million this year but was hurt by the district's decreased in assessed valuation, lower tax collections, state property tax caps and ever-rising costs on top of state funding cuts.

What the cuts will entail exactly, though, has not been determined. Green said cuts will come across the board in personnel, instructional items, non-instructional items and extracurricular activities.

"Cuts will come from all of them, not just one of them," Green said. "It's going to be spread across the board. It's going to have to be. You can't cut $4 million out of non-instructional items -- we'd have nothing left."

District members can submit suggestions for cost-reductions of fundraising on the district's Web site, www.eacs.k12.in.us.

Green said she mentioned the cost troubles and the state of the district Tuesday night for "rumor control," hoping to end gossip throughout the district and show exactly where the district stands financially.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0071-42525595