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| USD 367 May See More Funding Cuts |
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| News - Osawatomie | |||
| Written by Travis Perry | |||
| Wednesday, 18 November 2009 08:00 | |||
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Osawatomie USD 367 is continuing to ride a roller coaster of state funding highs and lows after reviewing the results of an Oct. 28 enrollment audit. The news shared Thursday by Superintendent Gary French was both good and bad. On the upside, the district’s initial enrollment estimates were nearly an exact match with the results garnered through the audit. In the end, the audit resulted in reducing the full-time equivalent (FTE) number for the district by 1.5, a minor change, French said, adding a reduction in the FTE number is not out of the ordinary. “It would be real unusual if they added students to us,” he said. However, that high note was overshadowed by another dose of bad funding news from Topeka. French had written $337,440 at the top of the audit reports he passed out during Thursday’s Board of Education meeting. “That would be how much we could republish for should this board meeting end right now and the state wouldn’t do anything,” he said. Unfortunately, inaction on behalf of the Kansas Legislature most likely will not be the case. According to an e-mail sent from the Kansas Association of School Boards, the state is $100 million shy of the funding necessary to reach the published per-pupil base budget of $4,218, meaning districts statewide may face an additional $150 cut to the per-student funding rate. The Osawatomie district potentially may lose $617,050 in funding. However, that number will be somewhat mitigated by additional state aid the district has been expecting in part because of free and reduced-price lunch numbers, knocking the projected cuts for the 2009-10 school year to $279,610. “Yes, (the state) took it away, but at least we had that money for them to take,” French said. The district is not alone in facing a depressing situation. While funding cuts are a necessary evil that must be dealt with, French said, but he is still unhappy about the situation as a whole. “I was really, really hoping this school year would not be dominated by money and finance,” he said. “It really, really wears on people.” After already making deep budget cuts and big changes, which included the district assuming control of bus transportation, French would rather not be in such a situation. Still, he takes some solace in the fact that Osawatomie is not alone. “Every school board is talking about it,” French said, adding he and officials from other districts will confer in the coming days and weeks about different strategies for handling cuts. “There’s no reason any school should go down this road alone.” Funding cuts have forced area schools to not only get creative with cuts, but also to make sacrifices as well. Louisburg USD 416, for example, has considered reducing middle school sports to varsity teams only. At this point, however, that’s not an option French is entertaining in Osawatomie. “Eliminating sports doesn’t save you that much by the time you actually do it,” French said. “When you start picking on B-team basketball at the middle school, thinking it’s going to save our budget, well, it’s not going to.” He elaborated on the issue, saying if that were to happen, it would really need to be done in collaboration with all schools in the area. Otherwise, the district would the risk of students and their families moving in order to attend a school where all athletic opportunities are offered. In any case, the potential difficulties USD 367 faces are something French will deliberate over for quite a while. “Bottom line is, there’s not enough money to fund the schools they way they need to be,” he said. “I’m cutting all the ways I can cut. You can only do certain things so many times before you get close to bare bones.”
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