New Budget Information

January 15, 2010 • Dr. Karleskint  
Filed under News

No doubt many of you are aware that Governor Parkinson gave his State of the State address on Monday night. In it he asked the legislature to consider passing a one cent sales tax increase for three years and raise the tobacco tax significantly. These increases would help the state get out of a budget deficit it is currently experiencing. Yesterday Dale Dennis, Deputy Commissioner of Education sent out information on how this would impact districts. He provided two numbers. The first number is what the impact of accepting the recommendation of the one cent sals tax, and the tobacco tax would be, the second number is what the impact would be if the recommendation would not be accepted. For USD 336 accepting the recommendations would mean that we would have to cut $130,000 for the next school year budget. If the legislature did not accept the recommendations and keep revenue coming into the state the same, and the projections that were made actually are received we would have to cut $647,400.

Since the start of the 2008-2009 school year we have had 5 budget cuts. As most of you will recall during the school year last year we had to freeze budgets, stop nearly all staff development, nearly all staff travel, and field trips. As we started the current school year we had cut over $500,000 from the previous years budget. During this school year we have dropped school days, cut classified work days, froze budgets again, little if any staff development, same with travel, and field trips due to the most recent cut that came in November. Attached to this email is a spreadsheet indicating one half million in cuts from last spring and summer.

Whether the legislature adopts the Governor’s recommendation or not school districts across the state are faced with further budget cuts. As you can see from the information above one is much more serious that the other. If the legislature does not accept the Governor’s recommendation we would be receiving state funding comparable to what was received in 1992. At the school board meeting on Monday night the board discussed potential cuts and how these potential cuts would be dealt with. In the next couple of days a list of potential cuts will be circulated for all to view. Please keep in mind these are potential cuts, there has been no decisions made. It is the wish of the board to hear from the patrons (this includes staff) on their wishes and concerns regarding further budget cuts. There will be an open meeting on Monday, February 8, 2010 at Holton High School Library at 7:00 to hear from patrons. If an individual is unable to attend the meeting their point of view will be accepted in written form. I cannot stress enough that the list which will be circulated is a list of potential cuts. No decision has been made, additional items could be added to the list.

The intent of providing the list of potential cuts is so the board can hear from interested parties and make decisions from the information received. I know the morale of the staff will be impacted by the information on the list. If you would like to do something I would encourage you to contact your legislators, have friends and family do the same if they are so inclined. Now is the time to act, the session started Monday and will last approximately 90 days. Below is contact information of area legislators.

Senator: Dennis Pyle

E-mail addresses are: firstname.lastname@senate.ks.gov

Senate leadership: Stephen Morris, Derrick Schmidt

Representative: Rocky Fund

House leadership: Mike O’Neal, Ray Merrick

E-mail addresses are firstname.last name@house.ks.gov

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