Ypsilanti schools must cut $1 million from 2011-12 budget by next week
Administrators in Ypsilanti Public Schools will need to find about $1 million more to cut from the 2011-12 budget by next week, officials revealed Monday.
Chief Financial Officer David Houle said he wants to have the budget ready for review by the public by June 20, one week before the school board is expected to approve it.
Houle and other administrators have identified about $1.8 million in budget cuts to this point, including the reduction of 5 teaching positions and a host of concessions from the Ypsilanti Support Services Association.
School board president David Bates said he was not hopeful that the additional $1 million that needs to be cut will not affect the classroom.
“I don’t have a good feeling at this point that we’re going to cut another $1 million out of this budget without having an impact in instruction,” he said.
Houle said the budget was built on the assumption that the foundation allowance coming to the district would be the same as the 2008-09 school year. Instead, state lawmakers passed a new $300 per pupil cut along with a $170 per pupil cut from the previous year. Those cuts cost the district about $1.7 million, Houle said.
Despite a one-time injection of funds from the state to help with retirement costs, Ypsilanti schools will still lose $361,160 for retirement costs.
Houle said he and other administrators would likely go back to the budget and adjust the enrollment projections made for the budget. The budget is currently built on the assumption that approximately 3,604 general education students will attend Ypsilanti schools next year.
“We want to be very realistic, but I believe we can look very closely at that again and there may be some room to build in some new expectations,” Houle said, adding that the restructuring of Ypsilanti High School and another class coming to New Tech High School could attract more students and stem attrition.
Houle said he wanted to build a surplus into the 2011-12 budget to help the district begin paying off its debt, but he said having a balanced budget by 2012 would be more likely.
Among the budget proposals Houle has presented are caps on health care spending for all staff, which would result in about $1.7 million in savings; a reduction of 5 teaching positions, which would save about $320,000; changes and reductions to transportation, which would save about $250,000; the elimination of academic coordinator positions to save $326,131 and savings from the YSSA agreement of $873,475, not including health care.
Trustees will likely meet some time later this week in a study session to review the budget proposal before it is released publicly.
Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.
Comments
Moonmaiden
Fri, Jun 17, 2011 : 12:39 p.m.
If there is going to be any adjusting of enrollment figures, it better be down, what with the new charter school opening in the southeast corner of the district. Readjusting enrollment projections, didn't Willow Run do that to balance their budget? How did that go?
sad day
Wed, Jun 15, 2011 : 8:38 p.m.
I think Ypsilanti Schools should take a lesson from Ann Arbor, and start cutting the administrators like Ann Arbor just did. C'mon, check the surrounding districts and look at their administrators per student ratio.
Greg Gunner
Tue, Jun 14, 2011 : 12:27 p.m.
For 10-12 years the state has been underfunding education. Why? Because our legislators are too concerned with keeping their political parties in power and have little concern for actually dealing with the shortfall of funds. It is much easier to blame the underfunding on the school employees and school administrators. Slick Rick and the boys have a plan to save our schools by cutting the head off of public education. Destroying the system is much easier than actually facing up to the lack of funding that is an annual burden faced by our school leaders. Laying off teachers is the Republican solution. We all know how that's going to work. It's time we spoke up and defended our public employees from the greed overtaking our state. Let get serious and raise income taxes 1% or so. Then everyone employed in the state is sharing the burden equally.
DDOT1962
Tue, Jun 14, 2011 : 11:47 a.m.
I can't believe the CFO, David Houle, is going back to adjusting enrollment projections as a way of dealing with this budget shortfall!?!? Are you kidding me??? There's a new Heritage charter high school set to open on Merrit road this fall and he's expecting an uptick in enrollment at YPHS? The charter schools, more than any other factor, have been bleeding the Ypsilanti district of students for a decade now. Play the role of the conservative bean counter, Mr. Houle, and be pessimistic about adding students. That way you'll be more prepared for a shrinking budget in the upcoming years. No more quixotic visions of what MIGHT be. Let's deal with what's really happening.
Grant
Tue, Jun 14, 2011 : 11:30 a.m.
In the past, the administration created community focus groups consisting of parents, teachers, support staff and other community members to arrive at which reductions would would produce the least amount of harm to the direct education of students. The process so far appears to be one of "shooting from the hip". I just hope when, not if Ypsilanti merges with Willow Run, that a team of knowledgeable individuals are involved in the process of maximizing the positive effect for students.
jns131
Tue, Jun 14, 2011 : 10:29 a.m.
I did hear that Ypsilanti and WR are going to meet next week to consider a merger. Whether or not this happens is up to the two boards that do meet. Things are pretty bleak right now with WR and I hate to say it, I see transportation going to Trinity. Ypsilanti has been bleeding for years, but not as bad as WR. Ann Arbor isn't too far behind. Good luck to the schools that merged with WISD, I hate to say it, I think this is where their costs are going.