Faced with another round of state-mandated furloughs and funding cuts in Gov. Sonny Perdue’s mid-term budget amendment, the Cherokee School District unanimously approved amending its current budget to use two school snow days as furlough days and pull nearly $2 million out of its reserves to offset the state funding cuts.
However, at the work session prior to the school board’s Jan. 21 meeting, School Superintendent Dr. Frank Petruzielo, warned of the possibility of worse news to come from the states 2010-11 budget in this year’s General Assembly.
“Our big problem is we don’t have people who understand we need a consistent source of revenue to do what we need to do,” Petruzielo said, referring to state legislators.
Based on a starting teacher’s salary of $41,500, the two furlough days would cut an additional $72.81 from each paycheck, which already have been $54.61 less each pay period from three furlough days the state mandated at the beginning of the school year.
The $1.9 million from the reserves essentially bought-off a third furlough day and accounts for the governor’s additional cut to Quality Basic Education funding.
Also at its meeting, the school board approved Hardin Construction’s bid of $18,73 million – $10 million less than the cost of Canton Elementary – to construct Ball Ground Elementary. The board also authorized a lease agreement with Clearwire to use the school system’s Internet bandwidth in a deal that is expected to generate $75,000 the first year and up to $50,000 each successive year for 30 years.
Although the bandwidth deal was “as close to free money as it gets,” according to school board attorney Tom Roach, who negotiated the lease deal, the discussion prior to the board’s meeting was dominated by grim budget forecasts.
“Next year may become the first time we adopt textbooks but can’t pay for them,” Petruzielo said.
The superintendent has issued dire warnings in the recent past about state funding cuts that could require such measures as cutting kindergarten classes to half days, curtailing arts, music and physical ed classes and reducing bus routes.
At the Jan. 21 work session, he said he has created committees of senior school staff members to look into a dozen ways to offset anticipated cuts in the state’s 2010-11 budget.
Among the ideas the committees will research are previous cost-saving suggestions, such as half-day kindergarten classes, reduced bus routes and charging other organizations for use of school facilities.
This year, however, marks the first time committees have been formed to research each individual cost-saving idea, and also includes some ideas that are either new or were vaguely hinted at in the past, such as cutting special education programs to the state minimum allowed, cutting sporting and athletic programs, eliminating school nurses, cutting school police and security expenditures and developing an alternative to summer school.
Although he frequently expressed frustration with state cuts to the board members, Petruzielo also said his creation of the cost-saving committees was not “saber-rattling,” and he seemed resigned to some or all of the topics being researched by the committees being put into place to some degree.
“People have come to expect a level of service, and, when the money’s not there to provide services at those levels, something’s got to give,” he told the board. “You can’t say, ‘We’re not going to put fuel in the buses so we can pay the teachers.’”
Petruzielo also raised the specter of being forced to raise the school’s property tax millage rate, currently at 18.85, to the state maximum of 20 mills in order to accommodate the school system’s growing size in the face of state funding cuts.
The idea of raising taxes caused Post 2 School Board Member Mike Chapman to exhort Petruzielo to make sure the school system does its due diligence to approach cost-cutting in the school district the way a small business does. Chapman ran down a list of suggestions, that he said he uses in his own business, that ran the gamut from renegotiating vendor contracts, stopping the purchase of buses, asking providers for utility audits, turning off the lights when leaving a room and being thrifty when using supplies, such as pencils and toilet paper.
“These measures can save a few cents here and a few dollars there, and those add up,” Chapman said, explaining that creating a measurable way to track cost-cutting can help the staff become invested in the effort across the board.
At one point during Chapman’s list, Petruzielo interrupted and angrily declared that all those measures were already in place.
“We’re already lean and mean,” he said. “I will put this organization up against anyone (in regard to cost-saving measures).”
In other business, the school board:
• chose Post 6 school board member Debi Radcliff as the 2010 board chairwoman and Post 4 member Rick Steiner as the vice-chairman;
• voted unanimously to approve purchasing an undisclosed amount of land in an undisclosed location for an undisclosed future project;
• recognized a team from Liberty Elementary who participated in The Stock Market Game, and posted a 20-percent gain over six weeks to win the region championship, besting competitors who were mostly from the middle-schools;
• recognized the school system’s special education staff for being honored by the Georgia Department of Education; and
• recognized Etowah seniors Emily McNutt and Alex Merrall for being regional cross-country champions.
