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The superintendent credits ''being good budgeteers,'' but one school board member says ''it's probably the padding.''
By BARBARA BEHRENDT
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 19, 2001
INVERNESS -- The state's budget crisis is taking its toll on Florida school districts, with some talking about layoffs while others are expecting to lose programs and special projects.
But in Citrus County, there is no hiring freeze, no plans to cut staff, no direct impact expected in the classroom and no talk of eliminating programs. Teachers and other workers are in limbo with regard to pay raises, but beyond that there is little evidence in the schools that there is a huge funding problem.
How did it happen?
Superintendent David Hickey, who had already knocked $1-million from the district's operating fund before the state's budget blew up, calls it "being good budgeteers."
Others aren't so sure.
"The answer is obvious. We are not feeling this the way most school districts in Florida are feeling it for whatever reason, but it's probably the padding," said board member Carol Snyder. "This certainly doesn't bode well for next year."
Earlier this year, the administration admitted that padding had been built into the district's spending plan for years. That is in addition to the millions of dollars in contingency funds squirreled away for various purposes.
Last week, the School Board questioned the way Hickey's team has shuffled funds in the budget.
Pat Deutschman and Sandra "Sam" Himmel questioned items on a list of $425,000 in budget cuts taken from the county office level. They were concerned, for example, that a rebate of $170,000 was listed as a cut rather than as new revenue. The money was the rebate known as the E-rate, which the school district receives each year based on the use of communication lines.
Finance director Sam Hurst told the board that the dollars weren't included in the revenue side of the budget because he wasn't sure how much they would be or when they would come to the district.
Deutschman also asked about the other $600,000 in cuts that Hickey had not documented. Hickey said those dollars were saved by charging some employee salaries and other expenses to a special category of money called Supplemental Academic Instruction or SAI.
"That potentially increases our expenses out of general revenues next year because we're going to use it all up" this year, Deutschman argued.
She said later that the move worries her. "It solves an immediate problem, but it carries over into next year," she said. At that point, if the district keeps the employees who were paid with SAI funds this year, next year they will either have to be paid from the general fund or they will tap off SAI funds again that could go directly to schools.
"It's a knee-jerk, quick-fix; but in the long-term, it's not going to solve any problems," she said.
Deutschman said it is hard to know whether the school district budget has really been a document with money tucked in various corners in case of emergency because there has been so much turnover in the finance director position.
"Every year there's been a new finance director," and each one has revamped the process, she said. "That's been a problem. It's been a revolving door."
She said she thinks the process will get better, but she also strongly believes that the board members need to have a better understanding of how the budget works so they can do their job better.
"I don't think that there is excessive padding. I think a lot of the things we see are places where we put money that we don't expect to spend -- money we don't want to spend, but we have it if we need it," Deutschman said. "Previously, you could call it padding, but it's not. It's responsible budgeting."
Himmel said she isn't comfortable enough with the information the board has received on the budget to know whether all the decisions are responsible. She said the district certainly should have considered the incoming E-rate rebate as revenue long before now. She said she wasn't sure how many other similar sources of revenue might also not yet be reflected in the spending plan.
"I don't know how many E-rates are out there," she said.
She questions other expenses built into the budget, as well, but Himmel is realistic about the cumulative effect of padding and revenues not included earlier. It has meant that the schools have not been affected in this tough budget year as the state tries to cut more than $1-billion from its budget because of the loss of tourist dollars.
"I'm really worried that next year is going to be worse," she said.
Hickey cringes at the term "padding" and argues that the decisions made to trim expenses from the general fund have allowed the district to insulate its schools from the budget crisis.
He disagrees that shifting salary expenses to the SAI fund will strap the district next year. In fact, he said the idea was "quite a stroke of genius."
Instead, Hickey said the trick will be to not make the same mistakes as officials before him and that means not promising to keep the positions permanently. If the people paid out of the SAI funds are allowed to stay in positions until they gain tenure, then the district must find a permanent position for them and that could take money out of the operating fund.
He also doesn't fault Hurst for failing to figure the E-rate monies into the budget as revenue. "I'd rather have my money in my hand so I can count it," Hickey said.
Board questions about the large contingency fund also bother him.
This year, the district's student enrollment was down from what was expected, which cost the system $800,000 in revenues it had expected from the state. But only $100,000 had to be found in the budget because one of the earmarked contingency funds was $700,000 set aside in case the numbers were low.
"Was that a good budget decision? It certainly was this year, and it has been in the past," Hickey said.
Overall, Hickey is pleased that there hasn't been more impact on the schools at this point, although obviously there could be by the time the Legislature meets again later this month to continue budget-cutting discussions.
"I want to think that we're just good budgeteers, and we'll be better budgeteers the longer we spend time together," he said.
But he also doesn't dismiss the board member concerns, and he vowed to improve the budget process. "We're going to work on that," he said. "We can't do it all in one year, but we're going to get started."
-- Staff writer Barbara Behrendt can be reached at behrendt@sptimes.com or 564-3621.