Woodland Park schools brace for budget cuts

Faced with declining enrollment and state budget cuts, Woodland Park School District RE-2 staff soon will start looking at what can trim.

During a grim budget briefing at a board meeting last week, Superintendent Guy Arseneau said recent estimates from the state predict a $1.2 million hit for next year’s budget.  That’s about 6 percent of this year’s general fund budget of $21.5 million.

“We have known this was coming,” Arseneau said. “We’ve got to look at the total picture, and everybody’s going to have to give a little.”

He said the district’s enrollment continues to decline, and estimated that there are 67 fewer students this year compared with last year, a 2.3 percent drop. The district’s 2008 enrollment was 2,883 students.

Board members immediately brought up the cost of busing in the sprawling Teller County district, and the concept of charging a transportation fee. The districts spends about $1.3 million a year to bus students to its high school, middle school and three elementary schools.

Arseneau said no Colorado districts charge a student transportation fee, but districts in some other states do.
Board president Rick Wetzel, cautioned that if parents have to pay for transportation, those who work in Colorado Springs might take their children to schools there, and the district would lose more students.

Last year the district considered a four-day school week to reduce transportation costs, but parents overwhelmingly opposed the change.

Arseneau said staff will begin reviewing budgets and programs to identify potential cuts.

In another briefing at Wednesday’s board meeting, a Honeywell consultant showed how the district could save money on utilities – with some upfront investments.

One list included upgraded lighting, building control systems, window caulking and other measures that would cost $1.3 million. The simple payback— not including financing costs — on the changes would be seven years, said Kevin Taylor of Honeywell Building Solutions.

Another list included needed mechanical upgrades, such as replacing boilers and rooftop air conditioners that are well beyond their expected lifespan. The heating boiler at Gateway Elementary, for example, is 41 years old. The price tag on that list was $3 million, but Taylor said he believed up to 75 percent of it could be covered by grants.

Board vice president Rob Hunt said he was concerned that some of the aging equipment will break, requiring emergency repairs that would be more costly. He also said delaying big purchases might mean the district would pay higher interest in the future.

The board agreed to proceed with planning for the projects and applying for grants with the caveat that the district might not be able to afford everything.

The board also got an update on the search to replace Arseneau, who is retiring at the end of the school year.

Six semi-finalists are paying their own expenses to travel to the mountain town for interviews with the board in early December. The candidate who must travel the farthest is coming from Ohio,  Arseneau said.

The district received 18 applications; a screening committee narrowed the field to six. Those semi-finalists have been screened and checked, and they’ll be interviewed by the board Dec. 2 and 3, he said. The last set of interviews will be scheduled for the week after the board selects finalists, he said. The district will pay expenses for finalist interviews. The job was advertised to pay a minimum of $106,000 a year.
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Call the writer at 636-0251.