D-11 summer school, jobs on chopping block

About $7 million in proposed cuts in Colorado Springs School District 11 that were laid on the table this week by district administrators would eliminate summer learning programs and cut 47 jobs.

The instructional services budget, which includes money for programs for special needs and gifted students, would take a 32 percent budget cut — with about 40 percent of that coming from the summer programs.

The proposals were presented to the D-11 board with the endorsement of a citizen oversight committee, which also submitted proposals for deeper cuts that may be necessary. Among those ideas: employee furloughs, fewer assistant principals, no busing, a 1 percent across-the-board pay reduction and elimination of library technology educators. The group, the budget subcommittee of the District Advisory and Accountability Committee, also suggested increasing athletic and rental fees and contracting out some custodial work.

The district might have to cut as much as $16 million from its general fund budget, which this year was $225 million.

The board spent about six hours digging into the budget at a work session Wednesday. Board president Tom Strand said it would take up the discussion again at a work session Feb. 17, and he hopes to have a 2010-2011 preliminary budget in place by March 10. The fiscal year begins July 1.

“We’ll work hard and do the best we can for the community,” he said.  “We’ll take this step by step, but we do want to let people know what might be going away. I think employees are calm and collected but are they worried? Absolutely.”

The goal is to keep the cuts far from core classroom expenses such as paying for teachers, books and other learning supplies. But Strand conceded that the proposed cuts indirectly support learning.

Summer school programs, for example, may help some students keep up with their school work. But achievement data shows they’re not as effective as tutoring, so administrators decided to propose eliminating them to save nearly $1 million while adding $200,000 to school tutoring.

The administrative divisions suggested cutting the equivalent of 47 full-time positions, many of them a combination of part-time slots.

Deputy Superintendent Mary Thurman said the district has left some positions unfilled this year in anticipation of budget cuts. That means many cuts can be made through attrition, and the district will strive to avoid layoffs.

The biggest proposed job hit was the elimination of 16 custodial positions.

Another idea tossed out this week could have impact throughout the community: elimination of all school custodians except building managers, which means the buildings likely wouldn’t be available in the evenings unless someone paid extra for cleanup and lockup services.

D-11 spokeswoman Elaine Naleski said she informed the El Paso County elections office that the 40 schools it has used for polling places might not be available for the November election.

That’s about one-fifth of the county’s nearly 200 polling sites and Vicki Ratterree, assistant elections manager, said it would be tough to find that number of new sites, which must be large and fully accessible.

“What we’ve got now is a heads-up that the district has budget issues that might impact us,” Ratterree said, adding that the election office budget does not include money for polling site maintenance.

MORE INFO

Click here to find the budget worksheets, which were attachments to the Feb. 3 agenda.