Thompson School District board gets ready to present budget to public

When the Thompson School District hosts a public budget hearing on June 1, community members will have a lot to digest.
On Wednesday, the district’s Board of Education received the official 2011-12 proposed budget, which combined the Budget Proposal Team’s two options into one complete budget that attempts to balance a more than $10 million deficit. Over the next week, the proposed budget will be scrutinized and tweaked before coming before the public in the state-mandated hearing.
When community members do take a peek at the proposed numbers, there’s not likely to be a lot of shocking material, given the current financial environment, but Steve Towne, the district’s chief financial officer, did point out a few items in the budget that could be of interest to the community.
Towne said the budget proposed cutting the district budget for textbooks and professional development, as well as some transportation costs, all of which would add up to a savings of nearly $2.5 million.
The district has already begun downsizing its workforce, cancelling teaching contracts and approving other cuts from the administration and classified sectors to help ease the deficit pain.
“Unfortunately, we have had to begin implementing reductions in staff, 60 (full-time equivalent employees) total across the district,” Towne said. “That’s about $3 million in savings.”
Individual school budgets will also take a hit in the proposed budget, with nearly every school operating on a smaller budget.
“We have lost revenue we would have been receiving because of the state budget challenges,” Towne said. “In addition, we have had some cost increases.”
Additionally, the proposed budget calls for the use of additional district reserves.
“About $4 million in rough terms will come out of reserves specifically to cover the deficit,” Towne said. “That’s in addition to what we had already been spending out of reserves for planned usage.”
Once the district has offered its public hearing, the board will make the final adjustments before formally voting on the budget June 15.