A question has been raised about the two budgets and school configurations being considered and why, if there are four schools in each one, there is a more than $1 million dollar difference between the two.

The answer lies in the number of current job vacancies that are budgeted for and would carry over to the budget that aligns with the current school configuration.

The Four School “Status Quo” Configuration Budget

 

At a budget of $46,211,951, this represents the higher budget with no changes to the current school configuration. What that means is, nothing changes in how the schools operate, including the 78 job vacancies. These job vacancies are budgeted for, whether or not they are filled.

 

The tax rate for this model, accounting for all vacancies that should be filled to support this configuration of schools, is an increase of 14.10%.

The Four School Grade Alignment Reconfiguration Budget

 

In the four-school school grade-aligned model, only 40 of the vacancies will be included in the budget.

• In this model, we account for an average attrition of 30 teachers leaving per year. These 30 teaching positions (not people) will not be included in the budget. It's important to note that this is not an elimination of personnel but simply of open positions.

• Schools that are aligned to grades allows for consolidation of classrooms. The number of students per classroom and teacher will still give us a better student to teacher ratio than what the state recommends. What this means is we will budget for fewer teachers per grade, which allows us to save money on 8 positions. Again, this is not removing people from the budget, just already vacant positions that do not need to be budgeted for. There will be plenty of teaching and intervention positions for the entire staff across the district who choose to stay.

• Combined, this is a reduction of 38 positions (all currently unfilled).

• This leaves 40 teaching vacancies available to be filled. In addition, all current teachers are included in the budget.

• Eliminating 38 vacant positions reduces the budget by $1,367,578 and results in a tax rate that is half of what the “Status Quo” budget will require. The tax rate in the reconfiguration model will be approximately 7.74%