At the last school board meeting, Dr. Cook, the Eddyville-Blakesburg School Superintendent, gave the following updated estimate of the reduced funding and increases in expenses which will have to be taken into consideration in preparing the 2010-2011 Eddyville-Blakesburg School District (E-B) Budget, as follows:
LOSS OF FUNDING DUE TO:
Reduction of students from last year’s enrollment. $205,340
The State’s 10% Across the Board cut in funding. 338,838
No renewal of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA). This was part of the federal stimulus program. 314,000
INCREASE IN EXPENSES
Misc. increases: Health Insurance (40%), IPERS (1.5%), etc. 240,000
TOTAL ADJUSTMENT FROM 2009-2010 BUDGET $1,098,178
The school board’s appointed Cost Savings Committee has reviewed all the school’s major expenses and made several recommendations to the school board on ways to cut the budget, and many of these recommendations can be implemented over a period of time. However, the major expense item is teacher pay and benefits, and the present number of teachers will have to be reduced to meet the budget requirements.
E-B offered an early retirement package this year to a total of six teachers/administrators. At the last school board meeting, it was announced that four teachers and one administrator accepted the offer, as follows:
Barb Lindenmayer – EEAC, 1st Grade Teacher
Cean McClenathan – HS Teacher/Librarian
David Whitver – HS Social Science/History Teacher
Tom Doyle – EEAC, Special Education Teacher
Dennis Rutledge – BAC/MS Principal
If none of these retiring members were to be replaced, this would be a savings in the “general fund” of $293,122 in wages per year (based on the total earnings report from 07/2008 – 06/2009). Additional annual savings would include health insurance cost of $34,570; and IPERS of $19,493. This would amount to a grand total of $347,185.
Since there needs to be a principal at the BAC & MS, this position will need to be filled. Whether this can be done internally with some shuffling of teachers would have to be determined by the school administration. The same applies to the four retiring teacher positions. Some replacements may have to be hired and the savings would not be as great as indicated. In any case, there will have to be further cuts in the number of teachers to meet the required reduction in the budget. Over the past 10+ years, there has not been a proportional reduction of teachers as the enrollment of students declined.
What is an appropriate student-teacher ratio or how does E-B compare to other schools in the state of Iowa? I had discussed this question in my last blog. Since then, I have found additional information in The Iowa Department of Education publication: “The Condition of Education Report.” This annual report gives a detailed analysis of the status of education and statistical comparisons of schools in Iowa. The following is a comparison of K-12 pupil-teacher ratios for Iowa Public Schools by enrollment category for 2008-2009 (Table 39 of the Department’s Report):
Enrollment Number of Number of
Category Students FTE Teachers Ratio
<300 10,212 1,045.7 9.8
300-599 50,676 4,172.4 12.1
600-999 65,464 4,891.8 13.4
1,000-2,499 118,534 8,790.5 13.5
2,500-7,499 94,104 6,479.7 14.5
7,500+ 131,573 9,073.5 14.5
State 470,563 34,453.5 13.7
E-B has a certified enrollment of 695 students. If the average student-teacher ratio of 13.4 was used for this number of students, E-B would have 52 (K-12) teachers. However, E-B presently has 64 teachers and a student-teacher ratio of 10.86. Is E-B overstaffed? There could be arguments on this issue both pro and con, but in comparison to other schools in Iowa, it is.
The salaries for E-B teachers range from $26,450 to $62,150. The median salary is $38,088. In addition, a number of teachers receive supplemental pay for various extracurricular activity assignments. Benefits include insurance (single coverage) at $5319 per year and IPERS at 6.65% of total wages.
If twelve teaching positions were eliminated or absorbed by other teachers, how much could be saved? It would depend on the mixture of the positions as far as salaries, seniority, etc. But if the twelve lowest paid teaching positions were eliminated, the minimum annual savings would be:
Salaries - $340,676
Health Ins. - 63,822
IPERS - 22,655
Total $427,153
This total savings is less than half of the amount that Dr. Cook said would have to be accounted for in the budget for 2010-2011. As mentioned earlier, there are also other potential Cost Savings which were proposed by the Cost Savings Committee at the last School Board Meeting including moving the middle school to Eddyville.
Fortunately, as Dr. Cook pointed out, the school does have a large cash reserve and unspent budget authority which can be used to absorb some of the reduction in the budget. The School Board will be holding a work session in the school’s Administration Office on Monday, February 8, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. to prepare the budget. If you are interested in learning more about the school’s proposed budget cuts, this would be a good meeting to attend. The proposed budget has to be published at least 10 days prior to a public hearing. And the public hearing will be scheduled for the School Board’s regular board meeting on Monday, March 22, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. at the Blakesburg Middle School.