Teresa Thiel: Financial Considerations

Question:
"How big a role should financial considerations play in making decisions about restructuring? Is this an opportunity to save money, or should we expect to see increased expenses? When does it make sense to spend money on our school system, and when does it not?"


Given the budget climate of both the district and the state and the demand by the public that the district become more efficient, of course financial considerations play a role in restructuring decisions. Everything the district does requires considering the financial aspect. If we keep all 16 elementary schools there is a financial cost and to pay that cost, money must come from somewhere else, since salary and benefits are by far the greatest cost, we will need to reduce staff pretty dramatically to pay for these repairs. How it is "efficient" or fiscally responsible to spend very limited dollars on buildings that experts have said they wouldn't put another dollar in, is beyond me. I would not support a plan that had NO savings in operating costs because those savings are ongoing and allow less deep cuts to programs or more dollars spent on maintaining our remaining buildings. People say just move the boundary lines, first of all that will only address over/under crowding at a few schools and it will save zero dollars and if busing were added would also add costs. Obviously with new classrooms needed there will be increased expenses in our debt. However, it will cost far less to maintain brand new classrooms than it would to maintain 85 or 100+ year old buildings, that is a savings in future maintenance and capital improvements budgets in addition to the $1.5 million saved in yearly operating costs.

I think it always makes sense to spend money on our school system, if we don't it will deteriorate and I don't mean JUST the buildings. What type of expenditures do not make sense? To me, trying to keep and repair all our buildings, resulting in millions of dollars to be spent with NO operational savings and no reduction but rather an increase in the maintenance and capital improvements budgets is fiscally irresponsible to me. Letting our buildings crumble because we do not and will never have the over $3 million needed for maintenance of over 25 buildings each year is also irresponsible. Deep program cuts in order to maintain buildings at the end of their lifespan is NOT educationally sound. The restructuring is about bringing equity to our buildings while at the same time being much more efficient in our staffing, which saves dollars year after year.

There are a number of educational benefits that will result from the restructuring that have been addressed in previous posts. This effort is not solely about saving money but that must play a part because all school districts need money to function. Yes, there will be additional costs due to the debt for additional classrooms, but adding on to schools costs less than building new schools. Those in the community who participated in the focus groups as well as the two large group meetings agreed that keeping class sizes low and bringing equity to our buildings and our programs were very high priorities. The restructuring plan addresses these priorities.