Parents try to unravel budget woes

By Karen Voyles
Sun Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008

Nearly 50 parents showed up Thursday morning at Eastside High School for a short course on school budgets.

The superintendent and a state representative explained how much has already been cut as well as how much more is likely to be slashed from school district budgets statewide over the next two school years.

A year ago, the state Legislature approved a $71 billion budget based on projected revenue.

Twice during the past year, lawmakers had to make downward adjustments because revenues fell 10 percent below projections.

“And we cannot deficit spend,” said Rep. Larry Cretul, R-Ocala. “We also decided not to raise taxes during the down economic times so we had to cut spending.”

Cretul blamed the revenue shortfall on multiple factors, such as the real estate market´s rapid descent. He also noted that the reality is Florida´s economy benefits when storms approach the coastlines, as the state always sees a corresponding spike in spending. But storms have stayed away from Florida in recent years.

Cretul used charts to show parents how spending per-student had been rising steadily from $4,032 in 1991 to $7,128 a year ago.

“But without the real estate boom that lasted several years and without the spending spikes from hurricanes, we would have been spending $6,024 per student this past year,” Cretul said.

Alachua County has cut $13.9 million from its approximately $200 million budget during the school year.

To make the cuts, the district has had a hiring freeze in place for all nonessential positions for most of the school year and has been holding budget planning sessions for the last few months to find places to make further cuts, according to Superintendent Dan Boyd.

“We are hiring teachers and bus drivers because those are essential,” Boyd said. “We already know that our per-pupil funding will be $272 less at the beginning of the (2008-2009) school year than we started with during this school year.”

There are also some rising expenses that the district is trying to compensate for, such as the 36 percent increase in the cost of diesel fuel during the school year that has been particularly painful.

The district uses 27,500 gallons of fuel in an average week. Boyd said rising transportation costs may mean that parents of children who are bused to magnet programs may need to be more involved with transportation. For example, students may need to be picked up in centralized locations instead of at multiple stops.

Among the complaints that Boyd addressed was the amount that Alachua County spends on administration.

“Alachua County´s spending on administration is ranked 52nd out of the 67 districts,” Boyd said. “Administrative costs make up 2.39 percent of our total budget, which is 5 percent below the state average.”

Perhaps the most helpful decision lawmakers made was to allow schools to continue meeting class-size mandates based on schoolwide averages rather than by individual classrooms.

“That certainly gives us more flexibility,” Boyd said. Without the schoolwide averages, Boyd said an additional teacher would have had to be hired when a classroom was one child above the mandated class sizes.

Most of the parents in the audience on Thursday identified themselves as parents of students enrolled or about to enroll in Eastside´s International Baccalaureate program. Their concerns focused on how the cuts were likely to affect academic programs. The answer from Boyd was “not much” if at all.

Parents had a mixed reaction to the meeting. One woman said the schools were “in much worse shape than I realized because of the budget.” Others expressed concerns that teachers without adequate training or experience would be assigned classes in subjects they may not be comfortable teaching. Some parents said Florida needs to find a better way to pay for schools instead of relying on property taxes.

District officials said they planned to hold another information session for parents on June 19 at Kanapaha Middle School beginning at 6 p.m.

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