Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010
District to continue cost cutting measures
Emily Jarrett, Journal Staff
Print
E-Mail
During last week’s Blue Springs Chamber of Commerce meeting, Blue Springs School District superintendent Paul Kinder was scheduled to give the state of the district address. Instead, chamber members heard a presentation on The Wall that Heals, a traveling Vietnam memorial wall scheduled to be in Blue Springs in late September.
According to Leslie Evans, director of public relations for the BSSD, the district wanted to give the Wall that Heals committee the podium.
“(The committee) really wanted to get that information out since they’re beginning to look for volunteers and donations, so we agreed to just reschedule until May,” Evans said. “We were ready to go, but we thought this was more pressing.”
After the luncheon, sources revealed the district called to reschedule its report earlier that morning.
This week, the Journal spoke to Kinder about what would have been included in the address, specifically the district’s budget.
“We’re going to continue our saving initiatives for next year,” Kinder said. “We’re in the process right now of eliminating costs.”
Kinder said part of eliminating costs includes a hiring freeze on staff, “unless they relate directly to set standards for accreditation,” he said. “We’re also restructuring vendor contracts, for example, we’re not planning on buying any new school buses or technology for next year.”
Maintenance, including work on parking lots, driveways and roofs, will also be pushed back.
Kinder said the district has trimmed $5 million from its budget this year and with assessment values at a low, the district is looking at another $5 million loss.
“We have about $10 million less than last year,” he said. “And it looks like we’re going to take a hit for the state budget as well.”
Gov. Jay Nixon’s proposed budget would give school districts less than one-sixth of the funding increase scheduled. Kinder said this will directly affect Blue Springs.
“With all the cuts, our budget is looking like it did during the 2001-2002 school year,” he said.
Kinder said most budget cuts won’t directly affect the students, except for the hiring freeze.
“Whenever you have a hiring freeze, one of the unintended consequences is that you have higher class sizes,” he said. “We’re also trying very hard to maintain programs and not eliminate any, but we’re going to have to make reductions in how we provide services, including fewer staff or supplies.”
Kinder also pointed out the $86.5 million bond issue that passed in February 2009 does not affect the district’s budget.
“The bond issue is different from our operational budget. We can’t spend that money on ongoing costs such as supplies or salaries,” he said. “With the bond issue, we had to borrow money in order to keep our facilities up to date, regardless. Sometimes it does help on the operational side though, for example, we had an energy system update that should lower costs overall in those areas.”
Looking to the future, Kinder said the next two years will be “very tough” for public education.
“From what we’re seeing and what people are saying, the 2011-2012 school year cuts could be more severe,” he said. “Whatever goes on in the classroom is still a high priority for us, but we can only do so much with the money available.
“We’re going to have to make some tough decisions.”
