Yes, there will be school cuts

The 30 or so community members participating in the La Conner School District’s crash course in school finance started listing things to slice out of the budget during Monday’s session.

The district is asking voters to approve a one-year levy of $995,000. Ballots, in voters’ hands right now, will be counted on April 26.

In February, voters rejected two levies totaling about $1.5 million. The scaled-down version being put before them now, will require the district to find $500,000 in savings, even if it passes.

Should it fail, another $1 million will have to be cut from the budget, which school officials say will be drastic.

On Monday, school Business Manager Bonnie Haley and administrator Peg Seeling, who will soon take over as interim superintendent, said some of the savings can be realized when staff members retire and their positions are not replaced.

Also, Seeling’s present administrator job will be eliminated when she moves into her new temporary position. Haley said senior staff retirements can be worth about $100,000 each. But sometimes the teachers have to be replaced with new-hires that hold certifications to teach in the same area.

When the workshop participants broke into groups to discuss cuts, there were some that came up right away. Teacher Sally Schroeder, speaking for her group, said their ideas included putting school publications, including “The Lantern,” online only. Several other groups came up with that one, too.

There was another suggestion to combine some elective courses with the high school and middle school, especially the ones with small numbers of students participating. There was talk of cutting classes that serve only a handful of high achievers.

Transportation supervisor Kim Pedroza suggested that scheduling field trips to closer destinations, especially for elementary students, could still benefit the kids and save money.

Food services supervisor Georgia Johnson came up with ways to save, too, including using less costly cutlery and increasing the cost of adult meals by 50 cents. She said there could even be a food service position eliminated if all the meal preparation were done in one of the school district’s kitchens, instead of two.

Even before the budget trimming exercise, School Board President Rick Thompson said sports programs that attract only a handful of athletes are likely to be eliminated.

At the end of the session, the proposed cuts still hadn’t reached $500,000. School board member Brad Smith on his way out of the meeting said that besides retirement savings, the suggestions probably came to around $60,000 to $80,000.

The cutting exercise will resume at the next workshop, scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, April 18.

On May 9, the school board will convene a special meeting just to make cuts to school programs. The results of the levy election will be known by then. If the current levy proposal passes, cuts will be less painful. Should it fail, the board will have to swing a machete.

Meanwhile, politicking on both sides of the levy question has been intense. Also, there has been a growth in voter registrations in the one precinct in which the February levies received mostly “yes” votes — Swinomish.

Overall the school district’s voter roll grew by 53 to 3,545 since last fall. The Swinomish precinct added 47 voters — 19 of them since the February election.

As in the last election, the majority of voters in the school district live on land the district cannot tax, which includes tribal trust lands and property owned by housing authorities.