[Vision2020] Idaho School Districts Declaring Emergencies

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (May 29, 2009) Spokesman Review.

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Idaho school districts declaring emergencies
Move lets them open contracts, reduce teachers’ paychecks

BOISE – At least a dozen Idaho school districts have declared financial
emergencies under a new state law, and more are considering the move as
they face their first-ever cut in state funding next year.

The law lets a school district reopen teacher contracts to negotiate
adjustments in pay, hours or contract length. It allows temporary
suspension of a state law that requires teachers to be paid at least what
they were the previous year.

West Bonner and Boundary County school districts have made the
declarations; Coeur d’Alene and Rathdrum schools are considering doing so.

“There’s no money, so what can you do?” asked Ryan Kerby, superintendent
of the New Plymouth School District in southwestern Idaho.

In Bonner County, West Bonner Schools Superintendent Mike McGuire said
he’s cut a quarter-million dollars from next year’s budget, but the cut
hasn’t made up the shortfall.

“We aren’t going to have a high school assistant principal next year in a
high school of 400-plus students – that wasn’t a luxury,” he said. “We’ve
made, I think, some pretty serious reductions throughout the district. We
just don’t have anyplace else to look.”

Tom Taggart, business manager for the Lakeland School District in
Rathdrum, said, “There’s a lot of potential risks with moving ahead with
it, but it’s one of the few tools we have.”

The financial emergency law passed as state legislators set a budget for
schools for next year that’s 7.7 percent down in state general funds. In
total funds, it’s a 0.4 percent increase, including targeted federal
stimulus money.

“The teachers out there are scared,” said Sherri Wood, president of the
Idaho Education Association.

In Coeur d’Alene, Superintendent Hazel Baumann said the district
considered declaring a financial emergency.

“We even took some of the initial first steps,” she said. Now, however,
“we are working collaboratively with our (teachers) association. 
 If we
come up with a solution that would require us declaring a financial
emergency, we would prefer to do it collaboratively.”

Kerby, in New Plymouth, is one of the few superintendents in the state
whose district has completed the process. The result: Every employee in
the district, “from aide to teacher to cook to custodian to secretary to
superintendent,” will take three furlough days, he said. That will save
the small district $75,000, and, combined with the federal stimulus money
the district stands to receive, fill the district’s budget gap. The move
couldn’t have been made without the emergency declaration.

It’s tougher for districts like Boundary County, which went to a four-day
school week several years ago. Superintendent Don Bartling said he’s
looking at nearly a half-million-dollar drop in state funding next year, a
figure that swelled in part because the district expects to lose about 43
students. The district already has cut 4.75 full-time teachers from its
staff of about 100. “It’ll result in larger classes,” he said.

West Bonner County schools are running a supplemental levy election
Tuesday to ask residents to ante up to save sports and extracurricular
activities, and to keep a five-day school week rather than cutting back to
four days.

If the $478,719 tax levy fails, those things would have to go, McGuire
said. Even if the levy passes, the district still will need to make cuts
in teacher pay or workdays to balance its budget. “The board is not
looking forward to doing this, and certainly the teachers association is
not either,” McGuire said.

State Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna has cautioned districts that the
law likely wouldn’t allow for emergencies to be declared two years in a
row, unless there are further cuts in state funding.

Karen Echeverria, executive director of the Idaho School Boards
Association, said she’s been hearing from school trustees across the
state. “They’re worried,” she said. “Some of them are holding tight.
They’re hoping the economy turns, but if it doesn’t, they want to be able
to declare that emergency in the following year.”

Baumann said she’s “cautiously optimistic” about the Coeur d’Alene
district’s finances. “The stimulus money is definitely at least mitigating
some of the panic,” she said.

Taggart said Lakeland schools, while likely to declare a financial
emergency, are headed toward a budget that’s “probably not as dire as
everybody thinks it will be.”

But he cautioned that federal stimulus money will be gone in two years.
“Things have to start turning around late this year, early next year, or
the third year down the road is really going to be a mess,” he said.

Wood, of the Idaho Education Association, said she’s glad the Legislature
allowed districts some flexibility to cope with the cuts. But, she said,
“I think it’s going to be devastating to some places.

“We’re going to start to see a real discrepancy in what is being provided
to our kids in the state in different areas, which is real frightening to
me, because I believe every child should have an equal opportunity,” she
said.

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New law

The financial emergency law passed during Idaho’s last legislative session
as lawmakers set a budget for schools for next year that’s 7.7 percent
down in state general funds.

In total funds, that’s a 0.4 percent increase, but that includes federal
economic stimulus money that goes to certain programs and certain
districts.

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Seeya at Farmers' Market, Moscow.

Tom "another product of public education" Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown