Finance Director Cheryl Crates said the District is probably going to have to lose $8.3 million in expenses somewhere next year. The first-draft hitlist included cutting back high school clubs, foreign language instruction, guidance counseling, career counseling, nursing, maintenance, media, buses, English education, and admin slots. The plan also calls for pummeling savings out of insurance companies and the District's bus company.
More than half the proposed reductions depend on winning wage and benefit concessions from teachers, though. The alternative would be cutting 73 more teachers and 22 more teachers' aides, according to the draft.
The draft reductions list is here at page 144:
http://www.d300.org/files/Board%20of%20Education%20Meeting%20Packet%2012.13.2010.pdf
In a mostly pro-forma exercise, the Board approved a 36 percent-increased tax levy for the 2010 tax year. That, of course, exceeds the 5 percent max levy cap and Crates explained it was mostly a legal ritual left over because the legislature never junked or changed the old Truth in Taxation Act. The law says the levy has to be adopted now but the District won't have the assessment and tax rate figures from the four counties it covers until May. Crates said the District intentionally overestimates the levy because, "If we don't we'll not only receive less money than we're due this year but every year from now on, forever and ever." Crates said her best guess right now is the District's tax rate will actually drop.
In the pic: D300's best guesstimate is rates will be down for the 2010 tax year.
2 comments:
You know it won't be the teachers pay!
This is so unfortunate! Teachers don't get paid nearly enough as it is. Class sizes keep creeping up and losing more teachers would make class sizes even more unbearable. The ones suffering the most due to all of this is the kids.
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