The Crookston School District held a long-range planning meeting at the Crookston High School on Tuesday evening and Crookston Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson told the board that he was proposing almost $400,000 in cuts for next school year. “For next years budget, we had to reduce the budget about $400,000 in total expenses so I put forward a proposal to the school board that looks at about $190,000 in reductions through attrition, basically positions we won’t look to fill,” said Superintendent Olson. “There is about $174,000 in true reductions and those proposals will be brought to the next school board meeting.”
The proposals will go before the Crookston School Board at their meeting on March 25 and if the board approves them, they would become official.
DECLINING ENROLLMENT THE MAIN FACTOR
With the declining enrollment and a spending deficit of $30,518 in 2018 and projected deficit spending of $300,000 to $400,000 this year. The biggest factor is continued declining enrollment with the average daily attendance of the district at 1,141 and the enrollment projected to drop to 1,103 in 2019 and another drop in 2020 to 1,090 students. In 2014, the enrollment in the district was 1,244 with a surplus of $1,009,387. “Students drive revenue and with some of our decreases in enrollment that catches up with the district and we want to make sure we right size our district and be fiscally responsible,” said Olson. “We want to make sure no services are hindered for students because that is our number one priority.”
FIRST GRADE MOVES TO HIGHLAND SCHOOL
Superintendent Olson is proposing moving first grade from Washington School to Highland School in the 2019-20 school year. “The proposal does call for first grade to move to Highland, which has some scheduling benefits to allow us to make some of these efficiencies in the schedule and we believe that will allow us to save up to $200,000 per year going forward.”
ATTRITION COULD SAVE ALMOST $200,000
Superintendent Olson is also looking at attrition to save $194,700. The almost $200,000 savings would come from not hiring somebody to fill Belinda Fjeld’s choir teacher position with her retirement at the end of the school year. The district would have the elementary choir director teach choir for all the district. The district would also discontinue the ELL position, which will be open at the end of the school year. The district will have several Special Education paraprofessionals retire next year and they will hire one less. With the three moves, the district will save $194,700 in salary and benefits.
NO EFFECT ON CORE INSTRUCTION OR CLASS SIZE
Olson asked the administration team to come up with cost reductions with a goal of $200,000 for the next fiscal year. “I wanted to look at these reductions and first and foremost we didn’t affect core instruction. We don’t want this to have a negative impact to our students, to our families and I believe that this proposal strikes a good balance of making the reductions necessary for the district, but also holding harmless our students so our students to suffer in any way. It also keeps class sizes the same and we always want to do this through attrition.”
REDUCTIONS WILL SAVE ALMOST $200,000
Reductions being proposed would save the district $174,000 and would include the following –
– Cut .67 Full-time equivalent in Physical Education. The move would be possible with 1st grade moving to Highland.
-Cut a Special Education Teacher. By moving 1st grade to Highland, Olson feels the district can handle the Special Education caseloads with one fewer Special Education teacher.
-A 10% reduction of supply budgets, saving of about $20,000
-Cut an Administrative Assistant Position at Highland School
TOUGH TIME AND RESPECTFUL COMMUNICATION
Total planned cost savings: 368,700 and it isn’t an easy time for the district administration, staff and especially those families affected by the cuts. “Basically, this is a tough time for the district. It is tough to look at reducing staff, but when our district is fiscally healthy it allows us to provide better services to the students,” said Olson, who said he contacted the affected staff last week so they wouldn’t find out through somebody else or the media. “We believe in respectful communication. At Crookston Public Schools, we want to be respectful in our communication and our approach so what we did is meet with people that would be affected by this proposal. We also talked with our staff on Monday about the future and what this looks like for the district. This is a tough time for our district and I do believe, that while this was a painful step, it is what is best for the district.”
