School budget full of gloom

With growing enrollment, a growing budget, higher health care costs and little new money, budget talks are full of pessimism.

By ROBERT KING

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 18, 2001

BROOKSVILLE -- Bleak, gloomy and dim.

As they begin work on the school district's budget for 2001-02, those are words teachers union leaders, School Board members and Superintendent John Sanders are using to describe the financial outlook.

And these are people who, after seven months of budget turmoil, recognize despair when they see it.

Already there is talk that teachers, who received raises averaging 6 percent last year, might be lucky to get 2 percent by the time the budget is approved in September.

Already there is talk that summer school will be axed for 2002. And even a program that seemed like a sacred cow last year -- a $450,000 effort to ensure every second-grader reads on grade level -- could be in jeopardy this year.

"Nothing is sacred," Sanders said Tuesday after talking with board members about the budget outlook.

Why such gloom?

The school district's health insurance plan, for one. There's still no good evidence that the cost of paying for school employee health care has come under control.

And it could only get worse. Officials haven't ruled out the possibility that the school district, with its self-funded health plan, might finish the 2000-01 budget year with more than $3-million in new health insurance debts.

Second, there is the very real prospect that state lawmakers in Tallahassee will send little or no new money to school districts this year. It's possible that the only additional money districts might see would come from the growth in their tax bases.

But Hernando school officials say that might not cover the new teachers needed to offset growth in the student population. And it doesn't begin to cover things such as higher school bus fuel costs, which are skyrocketing just like the gas prices the public pays.

Finally, there is the reality that, to meet its current budget, the School Board had to resort to $2.4-million in midyear cuts. That meant returning some district level staff to the classroom and allowing many job vacancies to go unfilled.

"I'm still concerned about the previous budget," School Board chairman Jim Malcolm said at Tuesday's board workshop. "What went wrong?"

Admittedly, Malcolm said before Tuesday's meeting, "I go into this budget year less secure than previous years."

Sanders and his finance director, Carol MacLeod, said there is much better communication among the budget office, school principals and district department heads this year.

But Malcolm and School Board member Gail Coleman asked Tuesday for a written report -- and other audit materials -- to help them understand what went wrong earlier this year.

The gloomy outlook brings into play some difficult choices.

Sanders said he might ask the School Board to consider increasing class sizes in an effort to cut corners. That would mean the district would need fewer teachers on the payroll. But it also goes against a core philosophy of Sanders and his staff: Smaller classes are best for learning.

The prospect of larger classes and small pay raises bodes ill for the district, according to teachers union president Jo Ann Hartge.

"It's bleak. It's not good. I don't know how we are going to keep those teachers who are young and mobile from moving," Hartge said.

"We're out of options. We're growing. We need more teachers. We need more buildings. And we're not going to get more funding for it."

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