School Officials Adjust Budget

When the Board of Finance directed that $250,000 be cut from the school system's operating budget before passing a 2010-11 proposal last week, it did so with specific cuts in mind.

Finance members noted that the Board of Education may well be underestimating the amount of money the system will get reimbursed next year for special education expenses and that there will probably be a greater savings than budgeted for from teachers switching into the system's new health savings account benefits plan.

But the finance board can't change line items, only bottom lines, so the Board of Education discussed how they planned to meet the new figure at Monday's meeting—whether to cut some sort of program, increase the risk in the budget (essentially what the finance board was advocating) or to find some other way to juggle monies.

The final decision, recommended by Superintendent Deborah Low and Business Manager Paul Hendrickson, was: increase the budgeted amount of special education excess cost reimbursement from $700,000 (60 percent) to $880,000 (74 percent), decrease pension expenses from $940,000 to $930,000, reduce other insurance expenses by $20,000 and reduce the amount budgeted for electricity by $40,000.

Low emphasized that the Board of Education was shouldering increased risk by assuming higher state reimbursement rates but that she was OK with it as long as the Board of Finance wouldn't resist a special appropriation later on if predictions turned out inaccurate.

"We're a little bit more exposed," Low said.

Board member Amy Shinohara, who has been attending all recent finance meetings, reported the finance board said they would support the school board should this shortfall come to pass.