Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Layoffs not planned by Belen Schools

Jackie Schlotfeldt News-Bulletin Staff Writer; jschlotfeldt@news-bulletin.com

Belen The Belen Consolidated School District is not worried about running out of money or paying its employees' salaries.

It has no intention of a reduction in force (RIF), even though projections for costs for ancillary services are higher than initially budgeted for.

Superintendent Patricia Rael said at a budget workshop Thursday the district is budgeted to take care of staff and students and is not operating in the red.

"There's been a lot of misunderstanding of the budget," Rael said. "It has caused some concern - and we should be concerned. We need to be frugal and make good decisions."

Deputy Superintendent and Finance Director Art Castillo said calls to his office began last Wednesday, following Tuesday's regular board meeting, where it was announced that ancillary costs were $1 million more than budgeted, and he was asked when a reduction in force would begin.

"My comment was there won't be a RIF," Castillo said.

Castillo went on to say the budget was structured so there would not be a reduction in staff and most of the staff is under contract and has received a 2 percent raise. He said fixed costs in the budget had to be reduced in order to present a balanced budget — and ancillary services are considered a fixed cost.

"We're not facing a financial crisis - not right now," Castillo said. "It's early enough to make adjustments."

Castillo reported that the current status of the operational budget as of Wednesday showed all employee contracts were signed and there was $3.7 million in the budget that is unencumbered or not yet designated for an expense.

Expenditures such as utilities and classroom supplies, which are not encumbered into the future but rather paid as they come in, will be paid from the $3.7 million. Castillo said historically the district has spent approximately $300,000 to $325,000 on classroom supplies per year and anywhere from $1 million to $1.5 million on utilities. But he said those amounts will depend on fuel costs, which are currently fluctuating.

At June 30, the end of the last fiscal year, Castillo said, the district had a cash balance of $27,000, after expenses. It's too early to estimate how much of a cash balance the district will have this fiscal year. He said that, after the first of the year with cost patterns established, they could start estimating what the cash balance may be next June.

"It's a positive place to be," Castillo said. "The district is not out of money."

Board member Julian Luna said he didn't think the district was going through anything different than other districts, families or businesses, but the board needs to look at every dollar it spends.

"Maybe we can bargain to get better deals," Luna said of some services sought.

Board president Jamie Goldberg said while the costs of services for special needs students is higher, the costs are just projections and those numbers could change, depending on how many students need services.

Goldberg went on to say they should not get in a blame game between special and regular education because that is not a fair assessment of the situation.

"It's not a question of the amount of money for kids," Goldberg said. "Kids in special education need services, and we have to provide them by law. I don't want it to sound like kids are causing problems. They're not. It's just getting the budget corrected."

Questions surrounding the funding formula for special education were raised, and Castillo said although a 16 percent cap was recommended by a committee working on revamping the funding formula, it did not pass the legislature.

"Right now, we're at 19.6 percent (of students) needing (special education) services," Castillo said of the district.

Determining what type of services a student needs is also a lengthy process. Rael said standardized instruments are used by diagnosticians and then their findings are sent back to a team to determine what services are needed. On average, it takes approximately 16 weeks to make that determination, said special education director Mary Chavez.

Board vice president Sam Chavez said what is clear is the board has to look at all expenditures and tighten its belt. He said he talked with transportation coordinator Frank Romero about bus routes for students who are taken across the district for services. That could incur quite a bit of time as well as higher fuel costs, Chavez said.

Romero said it used to be a big issue, but they've made improvements on the routes.

Rael added that when she became superintendent a year ago, they studied the routes carefully and reduced them by 60 or 70 percent

"Sometimes a child has special needs that needs to be addressed by a certain teacher or needs to use equipment stationed at another site," Rael said.

Mary Chavez said Rio Grande Elementary takes the medically fragile students so sometimes students have to be transported across the district for those services.

"That's just the bottom line," she said.

Sam Chavez said he fully understands the needs of the medically fragile, but he suggested they take a look at different types of student services overall to see if students need to be transported across the district.

Luna said they have to be very careful because, for every action there is a reaction, and special education is an individualized thing.

"If there's an opportunity to cut costs - do requests for proposals (RFP) for the same quality job, then we have to look," Luna said.

Goldberg said the rates for ancillary services haven't gone up that drastically, but service projections are higher. He said he heard from a couple of parents with special education children who were unhappy with some of the comments made at the board meeting Aug. 12, that were reported in the News-Bulletin.

"They weren't at the meeting, so I don't think they got the entire gist of it," Goldberg said. "The article came across harder on that category of classification, and that's not the case. It (the budget) is tight and will stay tight. Maybe we put out a three-alarm-fire when it was just a one-alarm-fire. We're not going to cut anything."

Sam Chavez said the problem in the budget is not a special education problem, it's "our problem.

"We can all see cost savings in our areas and, if something can be done in-house, we don't need to contract it out. Art is very diligent in the management of the budget, and I will back him up."

Luna commented that everyone has to remember why they're here - "we're here for the kids. Let's be frugal with the lights but not frugal with the kids."

"We won't cut teachers, and we will meet the needs for all our children," Sam Chavez said. "We may not have the hiring of (new) staff immediately but everyone will have to bear with us."

Castillo said in the spring the board asked him to look under every rock when putting the budget together and that the budget is solid.

"We have to do some adjusting and scrutinize how we spend," he said. "There will be things I will have to deny, but, overall, the budget is fine."

Castillo said he suggested providing budget reports to the board as a regular item on the agenda.

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