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Schools chief says cuts so far may be enough
By BARBARA BEHRENDT
© St. Petersburg Times, INVERNESS -- Superintendent David Hickey won't really believe it until he sees it with his own eyes. Hickey plans to be in Tallahassee next week as state lawmakers take their final vote on budget cuts that will slash spending plans for school districts across the state because of the state's revenue shortfall. On Thursday the Legislature was talking about cuts of up to $807,000 for Citrus schools, based on the state Senate proposal. Both the House and the Senate had begun to work on that proposal, but the negotiations were far from over and Hickey was wary of getting too excited about the total. Although no cut is good news, the proposal was still far below the pessimistic predictions that the district could lose $3.3-million in the more drastic House version of the budget cuts. Hickey has said that new cuts in school district services should not be necessary if the state's financial contribution to the district schools is reduced by $1-million or less. Already the district has trimmed $1-million from general fund budgets at the county level. Officials have shifted salary expenses from the soon-to-be-reduced general fund to other more-inflexible spending funds, cut fuel expenses in transportation, cut out funds to catalog school records on microfiche and have avoided filling any positions that would take money out of the general fund. Contract negotiations with the district's employee unions have also been suspended until the end of the special legislative session. "The Senate version is most assuredly better news for the 67 school districts in the state of Florida," Hickey said Friday. "A cut of $800,000 is better than $1-million and a lot better than $3-million." Still, Hickey and his top administrators have already begun talking about what he calls "Plan B," which is a series of cutbacks that would come if the reduction for Citrus schools is more severe than expected. Those trims would cut into the district's services, possibly slicing money from travel expenses, inservice, school technology and other areas. Hickey said he hopes he doesn't have to cut those, but he said the district needs to be prepared. He said he hopes that the district also doesn't have to dip too deeply into its contingency fund. "It's no secret that our undesignated reserve is at about the percentage that the board has asked for," Hickey said. "That is for crises and emergencies, but at the same time, we don't want to go too far into that reserve any more than the state wants to go into theirs." Even if the cuts are no deeper than those discussed this week, Hickey said, there are still some other financial realities the district needs to worry about. Although the district is rechecking the formal student count taken two weeks ago, early numbers are bad news. They show that the student population is so far below projections that the district will likely lose the entire $700,000 set aside to absorb such student number drops and possibly $100,000 more. State funds to the schools are largely based on those population numbers so such an overprojection is costly to the district. Hickey said the news for the 2002-03 school year budget will likely be even worse. He said that made officials cautious about any big decisions that would cause recurring expenses for this year and beyond. That could figure prominently in the minds of district officials as they prepare to settle employee contracts and establish salaries. Hickey said he hopes that employees, who have not yet seen pay raises beyond their annual pay raises, will understand if the news is not good when the time comes to return to the bargaining table.
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