Thursday, Mar. 11 2010 7:01PM

State announces 4 percent reduction in school funds

District loses $1.9 million for rest of 2009-2010 year

Emily Jarrett, Journal Staff

The Lee’s Summit R-7 School District may have to cut as much as $5 million from it’s budget for the 2010-2011 school year, after the state announced a possible 4-percent reduction in aid for public school districts.

“The 4 percent could be a conservative estimate,” said R-7 Superintendent David McGehee. “It could be higher, we don’t know yet. We’re trying to not over react to what’s coming out of the state budgets right now. We’re focusing instead on how we can save money, in anticipation of the next round of cuts that may happen.”

For the rest of the 2009-2010 school year however, the district will lose approximately $1.9 million in state funds, including reductions in basic state aid, reimbursement for school bus transportation and Prop C money.

Funding for summer school at the elementary level has also been severely reduced and McGehee said transportation to and from summer school may not be provided by the district.

“Right now, we can’t afford to transport students like we did last year,” he said. “If there is no state aid available, we may have to cancel elementary summer school altogether.”

McGehee said high school summer school classes will not be affected by the cuts.

“Those classes have an impact on a student’s ability to graduate on time, so we couldn’t eliminate the program at this late date,” he said.

Parents As Teachers, another program funded mostly by state aid, will also have cuts to its budget.

“Right now, we don’t know how the budget changes that will affect Parents As Teachers,” McGehee said. “Without any state aid, their budget is a little over $700,000, so a team has been put together to see what kinds of programs they can cut or develop should they receive no money from the sate at all next year.”

As for cost containment measurers for the 2010-2011 school year, McGehee said the district is already looking at cutting $2.1 million. However, if the state reduces aid by 4 percent, that number will more likely be closer to $5 million, McGehee said.

“We’ll have to find another $3 million in budget cuts,” he said. “It’s too late in the year for us to significantly reduce our budget because large cuts would have to be in staffing. The only way to come up with that large amount of money is to not move the salary schedule.”

McGehee said he’d like to be able to give those teachers who have gotten advanced degrees recently, their annual raises.

“They’ve already spent that money and we’ll try to put an emphasis to salvage that portion of the salary schedule,” he said.

According to the district, budget cuts may also come in the form of a district-wide salary freeze and schedule changes at the high schools and middle schools.

“During the 2010-2011 school year, high school teachers will have to teach an additional section and we’re looking at that for our middle school teachers too,” McGehee said. “Over time, this will reduce the number of teachers we have.”

The reduction in teachers may lead to larger class sizes, something that will have a direct impact on students, McGehee acknowledged.

“We’re still evaluating every teacher position that’s opened up, to see if we can eliminate the position to save money,” McGehee said. “We’ve already cut $1.7 million in staffing, primarily through attrition.”

McGehee cautioned the 4-percent reduction is not official yet, though budget cuts are inevitable.

“We know we’ll have less state aid than we did before,” he said. “But we also don’t know how the state will slice the 4 percent either. Depending on how they do that, it could affect different districts in different ways.”

McGehee guessed the district wouldn’t know about the official number until after the legislative session ends in late May. He also said he doesn’t see the budget problems getting any better during the 2011-2012 school year.

“The state aid will really dry up in 2012, because that’s when the federal stimulus money will end,” he said. “We may have to ask for additional help locally and possibly put a levy before voters.

“It’s like a sinking ship. Right now, all the districts are throwing overboard everything they can. But eventually, those holes will have to be plugged.”

To reach Journal reporter Emily Jarrett, call 816-282-7018 or e-mail ejarrett@lsjournal.com.