Published: March 12, 2008 12:41 pm            

Bennett prepares to cut $2.5M from budget Greater Clark County Schools budget

Greater Clark County Schools’ Superintendent Tony Bennett announced at Tuesday night’s board meeting he is preparing to cut $2.5 million in expenditures for the 2008 budget.

That means eliminating 30 to 35 workers from the payroll, among other consequences.

Since 2002, the corporation’s expenditures have outweighed revenue every year. That has been eating away at the corporation’s existing funds. Then, the beginning balance totaled nearly $21 million. The 2007 beginning balance is at less than half of that, sitting at a little more than $10.3 million.

“This is not an issue where you can indict any one person or group of people. This is not an issue of fiscal irresponsibility,” Bennett said, mentioning that if something like this happened in the past, the government would step in and fund the shortfall. However, he said that is not possible now. “We need to adapt,” he said.

He listed four reasons for the diminishing funds. He said the corporation is losing interest on funds from property taxes when they are collected late by the county and the revenue from the state has decreased over the years.

“We offered more educational opportunities and more staff during a time when we had decreasing revenues,” Bennett said, mentioning full-day kindergarten as one of those opportunities. “In 2008, we have to take some pretty serious and pretty significant measures to turn this around.”

One way he hopes to do that is by not replacing those who resign or retire. Another is to not automatically renew contracts for all employees.

Other projected changes include cutting $500,000 from administrative costs by restructuring, taking out about $400,000 from operational expenses and reducing instructional — including teaching — costs by just more than $1 million.

When asked about the building funds, Bennett said by Indiana law, money can not be moved from that account to the general funds account, which pays for administrative, operational and instructional costs.

Bennett plans to present the board with a detailed plan on how to cut

$2.5 million from the budget in April to be voted on. He said he is waiting on the state legislature to finish work so that he knows the final figures the corporation will receive.

Bennett said another factor includes the ongoing talks between the teachers’ association and the school corporation. The teachers have been working under their old contract since the beginning of this school year, since no agreement has been made on a new one.

Board member Ernie Gilbert asked Bennett if the corporation could offer buyouts to those getting ready to retire to keep others from losing their jobs. Bennett said that would be a short-term solution, saying GCCS would be right back where it is now just a few years later.

Board member Bill Halter mentioned cutting field trips, athletic events and other items from the budget.

“I’m willing to cut back on everything so that no one has to lose their jobs,” Halter said.

Thirteen people have either submitted their resignations or plan to retire at the end of this year. The deadline to notify the board for those was March 1. Bennett hopes to extend that to see if more would be willing to leave. The 30 to 35 that need to be cut is in addition to those 13 who have already filed.

“These are definitely some challenging times,” said Missy DeArk, board secretary. “Our ultimate goal is to not impact instruction. Know that we are doing everything we can to eliminate that piece of it.”

IN OTHER BUSINESS

• The board approved the Charlestown High School schematic design. That design did not include the automotive-technology program the school has now. Bennett said cutting that saved $1.3 million for the building project. He said he will look into having the program at an off-site location or having students go to Prosser School of Technology.

• The board approved a bid for the painting of the Jeffersonville High School addition and renovation project. The first time the board asked for bids was in December. No one submitted any offers at that time.

This time, only one company, Howell & Howell Contractors, did. That bid was for $455,270, which Bennett said is about $55,000 more than what was budgeted.

        

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