Schools

School District 197 Outlines Schedule for Budget, Public Involvement Periods

No action taken Feb. 8, but a tight timeline must be met to finish 2011-2012 budget by the end of this school year.

The District 197 School Board reviewed a timeline Tuesday for the budget process now underway. The schedule includes two weeks this spring devoted to getting public feedback on options for cuts.

The board plans to cut $2.4 million over upcoming weeks. The cuts are intended to address a shortfall of $1.4 million and to create a $1 million reserve of “innovation dollars” to fund projects in the district schools over the next two school years. The projects will be evaluated based on their potential to reduce the cost of education, said Superintendent Jay Haugen.

“We are plowing new ground with the budget process this year,” said Mark Spurr, a board member and part of the financial advisory committee. He said in the past the district has made adjustments to existing budget plans to meet revenue. But now, he said the downward trajectory of school funding has made it clear that the district needs to reevaluate how education is delivered in the district with the revenue at hand. He said the process the board is developing falls somewhere in between past procedure and rebuilding the budget entirely from zero.

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Initial budget options from the financial advisory committee are expected to be available the beginning of March. That means that school sites will have to provide a picture of their site budgets by that time. Meetings throughout the district would then be scheduled for the week of March 14 throughout the district so that residents can provide feedback and ask questions.

Staffing numbers should be known by mid-April, said Finance Director Carl Colemark, but a good idea of what those numbers will be should be available in the March discussions, after schools put forward their plans.

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An initial draft budget should be available in early April, said Spurr, and by the work session at Henry Sibley High School April 18, the draft should have more information about staffing levels. 

Another round of public input meetings are then expected to be scheduled the week of April 25.

The public meetings should be more of a conversation rather than a comment submission format, said Communications Director Susan Brott. Brott said the district is also looking at ways to develop alternative ways for residents to participate in the discussion, including online forums.

No formal action was taken at Tuesday’s meeting. The details of the public feedback process, meetings in the district, and how to administer the innovation dollars are all issues the board needs to figure out in upcoming weeks.


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