D-11 finds an extra $3 million in budget, but who gets it?

In tough budget times, an extra $3 million is like finding a pot of gold.

Colorado Springs School District 11, which expects to cut $11 million to $16 million from its 2010-11 budget because of state funding reductions, has just such a pot tucked away.

It’s about to be drawn into budget discussions, mostly behind closed doors because of a memorandum of understanding between the district and the Colorado Springs Education Association that was signed quietly last summer.

The memo, dated May 11, 2009, and signed on July 14, 2009, says the savings from closing and consolidating schools should be considered for increasing employee pay. Sort of.

Board members, and district and union officials agree that the language is a little vague and that the board hasn’t specifically earmarked where the nearly $3 million in closure savings would go.

But CSEA president Kevin Marshall said the recurring savings from closing schools is “new money” and the master agreement between CSEA and the district says that 90 percent of new money will go toward employee compensation.

He says $1.7 million of the $3 million should go toward teacher compensation and much of the remaining $1.3 million to other district employees.

“Employee compensation has suffered over the last few years, and we wanted to have some language in the MOU that this was the intent,” he said. “That was the intent at the time, before all this with the budget crisis.”

Marshall said he didn’t expect a fight over the funds but that it would be part of negotiations.

He also noted that the administration has collaborated with its staff during the budget crisis, and he expected that to continue.

The MOU will be the subject of a D-11 board executive session on Wednesday, and MOU negotiating sessions have been scheduled as the district begins regular negotiations with CSEA, the teachers’ bargaining unit.

That, in part, is why the D-11 administration has backed off the target of cutting at least $11 million from the preliminary budget, CFO Glenn Gustafson told the board last week.

With $6.7 million in cuts approved last week and $2.6 million in recommended cuts that the board will  consider board this week, Gustafson said, “that’s good enough to go into the development of the preliminary budget.”

The district, like all others, is waiting for the legislature to approve the School Finance Act so it knows how deep the cuts must be. And D-11 is about to enter employee negotiations, he said, so it makes sense to hold off a bit on more cuts.

His remarks led board members to ask about the status of other potential funding sources, including reutilization savings. Gustafson noted that some of those issues were tough to address in a public session.

“That’s still being discussed by joint counsel and will be brought to executive session,” Superintendent Nicholas Gledich said.

Board president Tom Strand last week said the vagueness of the MOU left a lot to interpretation, which is why the board will get legal counsel.

By the time the school closure savings were quantified and presented to the D-11 board in November, it was clear the budget would take a significant hit.

The $3 million is from salaries, maintenance and other costs of operating the eight schools that closed in May in a massive reorganization of facilities. Gustafson told the board in November that utilities savings were lower than projected because the district had only disposed of one of the buildings, the former Buena Vista Elementary School.

At that Nov. 4 work session briefing, Gustafson made an oblique reference to the MOU when he told the board that $2,956,651 could be added to next year’s budget — the one the board is now working on.

“Now, we have an MOU with the employee associations that we need to talk about in terms of what we do,” he said. “But that (money) is available for the board to consider how we use.”

John Gudvangen, who has since left the board, emphasized the promise made to the community when schools were closed to use savings to make better use of resources to improve student achievement.

Board member Sandra Mann briefly raised the issue of whether improved teacher compensation might help the district better educate its students.

“We say, Here are the savings, and here’s how we’re applying them to increase student achievement,” Gudvangen said. “Who knows what those decisions might be. Maybe on how we hire and reward staff.

“Good luck,” he added to the board members who would make those decision this year.

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