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1,000 Friends differ on route
House may restore critical programs
District attorney unveils plan to
curb bad checks
Schools
lose days, programs to save
$1.4 million |
Newberg schools wills
save $100,000 in position and program cuts,; new budget process begins soon |
By Christie Scotty, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Christie at cscotty@eaglenewspapers.com
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The
Newberg School District made reductions for this school year and will likely make more
next school year.
But right now, administrators are focusing solely on this spring. In the next four
months, the district will trim $1.4 million from its spending by breaking that sum into
three chunks of $467,633.
To parents and students, the most visible third of that $1.4 million will be
three fewer days of school and $100,000 in program reductions. This week the district
announced it would trim the $100,000 through seven items:
— Reduction or elimination of jobs, including the district’s
volunteer coordinator, food service secretary, and a roughly half-time position allocated
to NHS for the spring.
— Reductions of NOVA services at Dundee and Edwards elementary schools,
along with academic intervention services at Edwards.
— Also reduced will be substance abuse prevention instruction and
materials, and some counseling and psychological services.
The school board will hear more about the cuts Monday night but the reductions are already
“in motion,” according to Superintendent Paula Radich.
“We tried to make use of open positions, reduce the impact on the
classroom and preserve employment and benefits as best we could,” she said.
The district is also reducing substitute costs for staff traveling to
conferences or training.
“Whenever possible we will have administrators cover for teachers,”
Radich said. Teachers with free periods already fill in for absent teachers, and district
administrators have been called in to help out principals covering for teachers, as well.
Cutting overhead costs
On Wednesday, district officials met to do what many taxpayers argued all
government agencies should do when they voted down Measure 28 tax increases — cut
dollars from within.
The goal is to recover a second lump sum of $467,633 from the budget, doing
so through day-to-day expenses like classroom supplies and travel accounts. Radich said
the district typically underspends its budget in these areas by 2 percent.
“Our goal was about half a million dollars and we’re doing all
right,” Radich said. “We have more operational reductions to make.”
Employees e-mailed suggestions on saving costs and a Web-based survey of 44
suggestions was submitted to the district’s leadership team to prioritize.
However, it became clear at Wednesday’s meeting that some items were
impossible because of contractual agreements and others wouldn’t save as much money
as needed, Radich said.
The district is now focusing on three main areas: energy conservation,
reducing substitute costs, and having each school and the district office give back some
of the supply, textbook and travel money budgeted but not yet spent for this school year.
“That includes, computers, textbooks and library books,” Radich
said. “We’re not taking away, but whatever they haven’t spent they’re
voluntarily looking at their budgets and returning what they can.
“It’s different (for each school and office) based on what
they’ve spent to date and what they have committed to.”
Dipping into savings
A third $467,633 will be withdrawn from the district’s fund balance. The
district would finish the 2002-03 school year with about $300,000 in the bank with another
year of budget cuts facing them.
The district intends to avoid taking the state’s so-called “payment
shift,” the mechanism the state is using to move appropriation of funds into July,
thereby funding schools with money from the 2003-05 biennium. Districts without adequate
fund balances, however, will have to take the payment shift.
In some ways, Newberg is better off than many other districts. Two student
days and one staff day off the calendar means less instruction time, but is light compared
to what some Oregon schools are facing.
While Portland Public Schools get attention for cutting several weeks off
their calendar, they are not alone. Hillsboro will likely cut at least a dozen days off
the end of this school year; Sherwood is slated to lose six student days; Tigard-Tualatin
has cut two days and will likely cut at least two more and Forest Grove is eliminating
five student days and one staff day.
About 75 percent of days being reduced across the state are planned to be
student instruction days, while Newberg’s proportion would be 66 percent as student
days. |
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From Feb. 8,
2003, Newberg Graphic
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