School district cuts staff, programs

After four months of committee discussions, the Bigfork School Board adopted a number of personnel and program cuts for next year to make up for a $297,000 budget shortfall.

"There have been hundreds of hours of administrative and school board finance committee time to minimize the effects," Superintendent Russ Kinzer said. "This is my 22nd year as superintendent and this is the most difficult, lengthy and complicated one I've helped put together."

The most significant of these cuts came in both staffing and activities. Two certified teachers were cut and another teaching position will be left unfilled. Five classified staff positions, both full and part time, will also be eliminated. A number of other positions, certified and classified including tenured staff, also experienced reduced assignments or were reassigned. In addition, two sports programs, golf and cross country, will no longer be funded (See related story in sports: "BHS sports take big budget cuts").

More than 80 percent of the general fund budget is tied up in staff salaries, which is why that area is one of the first looked at in a shortfall, Kinzer said.

Administrators and the board's finance committee began meeting in January to look at budget scenarios, board chair Maureen Averill said, adding that last week's preliminary budget was probably "draft 100."

"I can't tell you how many scenarios have been looked at," Averill said. "None of it has been easy."

The bottom line was that the district was facing deficits of $135,000 at the elementary school and $162,000 at the high school and had to get back in the black.

"It had to be cut from somewhere," she said. "There's no area that didn't feel a pinch and get cut."

Recommendations were based upon staff sizes as well as reduced enrollment, board members said.

The board unanimously adopted a baseline budget to be in the black by $49,000 at the elementary school and $32,000 at the high school in addition to budget cut recommendations. However, these numbers are misleading, Averill said, because most of that "extra" is stimulus money that appears on the budget now but isn't actually available for use. How those final numbers reached can change up until the Aug. 15 budget deadline.

The district offered an early retirement incentive for both certified and classified staff and it did save the district some money, approximately $120,000, by only replacing two of the five and eliminating the higher salaries. This was not as much as the board had hoped, Averill said.

The budget has the potential to be in significantly worse shape next year, so the cuts seen this year may only be a start, Averill said.