Trustees work on budget cuts during lengthy meeting

PRIEST RIVER – After board of trustees chair Margaret Hall announced the resignation of trustee Troy Reinbold, trustees of the West Bonner County School District continued to deal with the fallout of a failed levy during a four-and-a-half-hour regular trustee meeting Wednesday, July 17.

Reinbold told Hall that he was too busy with work and family commitments to attend board meetings. She said the board would likely accept his written resignation at a later board meeting and move towards naming a replacement.

Reports and discussion on school bussing, staff shortages, school lunches, funding the school resource officer and dealing with the recommendations of the forensic audit took up most of the time. There was also a report on citizens fund raising efforts to offset the $4.6 million levy that voters rejected.

District Operations Director Ryan Carruth told the board that the district was eliminating two bus routes because of not having enough money.

“Due to the budget shortfall, we’re going to be forced to reduce from 13 routes to 11 routes,” he said. “That’s going to have some impacts.”

Carruth said the Priest Lake area would go from two busses to one. He said he was looking at some “non-transportation zones” in Coolin and Nordman. He said parents would need to “compromise and pitch in to help with that.”

He said Route 46 in the southern part of the district would be eliminated and combined with three other routes.

“We may see some crowded busses,” he said. He said last year the district was transporting 420-430 students a day, about half the district’s enrollment. He said there was little room to accommodate growth.

Carruth said he wanted to buy one new bus to get back on the state schedule.

“Although it takes capital investment, the failure to get back on the schedule will really cost us down the line,” he said. “It goes back to thinking strategically and having some long-term vison as a community.”

Carruth said because of lack of money, his department won’t seek to replace a half time employee. He said district employees have taken over lawn mowing and landscaping that was previously subcontracted.

He said the lawncare and landscaping work takes about 750-1,000 labor hours a year.

“It’s a lot,” he said. “It takes people out of the building.”

He said he anticipated challenges with the buildings when people are being taken out regularly to mow.

He said he would encourage the workers to do their best but said he wasn’t going to “grind them into the ground.”

The district’s business manager Dean Davis said his staff was also working hard. He said no one was taking a summer vacation.

Davis ran through the things the district was doing to deal with the lack of levy money. He said closing the junior high for a year will save $238,000 not counting staff. Eliminating the capital improvements that were in the levy trims $917,000 from the budget. Eliminating sports and extracurricular activities from the school budget saves $376,500, Davis said. A fundraising team is working to raise money for sports and extracurricular activities.

Cutting millions of dollars means reducing staff. Davis said the staffing decisions were difficult because it affects people’s lives and the students.

He said the district decided not to fill a principal position, saving $108,000. He said nine certificated positions, teachers, were cut, saving $591,300. Most, but not all the teaching positions were at the junior high and occurred through “natural attrition,” he said.

Making cuts to classified positions will eliminate $240,000, he said. Eliminating a curriculum coordinator trims another $91,500, eliminating four ISAT test coordinators cuts another $4,000.

The school nutrition program was running at a $350,000 deficit, Davis said, and the district was proposing reducing spending by $100,000.

The district proposed moving $125,000, about 90% of the health insurance buydown money to the general fund for the operation of the school. The money was set aside to pay part of the employees’ health insurance deductibles.

Other proposed cuts included $15,000 in paper and copy machines, reducing professional development and travel expense reimbursement by $11,600, saving $25,000 in the bus maintenance. Reducing the number of bus routes saves $17,200 on fuel, although the full savings aren’t yet known, he said. Having staff do the landscaping instead of contracting it saves $21,000.

Davis said the savings are all estimates, he will know better when they are made.

Davis said once the books are rolled over the district will have a more accurate number on the budget for the August meeting.

Board vice-chair Ann Yount said that the district didn’t have as much money for a school resource officer as thought and anything the district spent on an SRO means money won’t be spent elsewhere. Davis said the district was to apply for a three year grant the state has made available for 10 rural districts. If the grant is received, the district will get $83,000 to put towards funding a school resource officer.

Alex Zapeda and Angie Goins gave an update on sports and extra curricular fundraising. Zapeda said the group raised $267,585, which will pay for coaching stipends and other expenses. Zapeda said more needs to be done, as money is still needed for transportation and equipment. He said people really stepped up with fundraising with several big-money donations of more than $25,000 each. Donors came from as far away as Alaska.

He asked for and the board granted approval to charge participating athletes $100 per sport and to raise admission charges to $10 for adults and $5 for young people. Students with an Associated Student Body card will be admitted free. Zapeda said there would be a season pass available. Details were still being worked out, he said.

A public hearing on the fee increases will be held Monday, Aug. 12, at Priest River Lamanna High School cafeteria.