RI-Milan schools face $4.6M in budget cuts

Like many school districts facing tough decisions about budget cuts, the Rock Island-Milan School District is looking for ways to cut

$4.6 million from the 2012-13 school year budget - and staff numbers probably will be affected, the district's top administrator said.

Superintendent Mike Oberhaus said the district is considering a four-page list of optional budget cuts, which were compiled with input from teachers, union representatives, administrators, principals and others.

This list includes proposals that add up to $5.6 million, so not all of them will be chosen, the superintendent said, cautioning that they are only ideas at this point.

Oberhaus plans to present a prioritized, narrowed-down list of recommendations to the school board Feb. 27, based on community input during three upcoming public forums. The board is expected give final direction March 27 to the administration to build the budget and vote to approve it April 10.

But with 87.5 percent of the district's annual expenditures spent on employees, Oberhaus said, "when we're looking at making reductions, staff will be a part of the mix."

The current list of ideas, listed in no particular order, includes $3.8 million worth of options that would cut employees and increase class sizes, along with other ideas that would cut building maintenance, administrative staff and programming.

"It looks like a scary list, but it's just the start of a discussion," said Bob Smith, history teacher at Rock Island High School and president of the Rock Island Education Association. "I would be stunned if some of those things came to pass."

The cuts aren't necessary because the district is overspending, the superintendent said. The deficit is caused by "a revenue problem," he said.

About 41 percent of the district's revenue comes from local taxpayers and fees, but 59 percent comes from federal and state funding, which is on the decline, Oberhaus said.

The district has been operating in a deficit for the past four years, making some reductions along the way, but nothing as extensive as the superintendent expects for this new budget, he said.

The district, which serves 6,000 students, is operating on a current budget of $56 million.

The district also has $23 million in reserves, which it could dip into to offset its declining revenues, the superintendent said. The district needs to keep at least $15 million in those reserves to pay its bills without borrowing money during the school year as it waits for revenues to come through, he said.

"I would suggest the approach is going to be to use some reserve spending," Smith, the union president, said. "It's been a combination of reserved spending and targeted cuts in previous years, and administration has done a fantastic job of reducing spending without impacting staffing levels."

Smith emphasized that the list of budget-cut ideas is just a starting place for an "open discussion." He said if personnel cuts are necessary, they can occur through attrition, as staff members retire.

He added that increasing class sizes is "certainly not desirable."

"We've kept staffing levels constant but have had upticks in enrollment, so we have rising class size already. And that is very difficult," he said. "The larger the class size, the less time there is for teachers to spend one-on-one time."

Another idea on the list is to eliminate several athletic teams and to cut instrumental music instruction for children in sixth grade, starting instead in junior high. Pete Carlin, director of bands and instrumental music for the district, said most other school districts begin offering instrumental lessons in earlier grades.

"If they cut it, it would hurt us," Carlin said. "It would hurt us quite a bit, to be honest with you. It would put us behind."

But he said the list of potential cuts is not a reflection of anything but the economic times.

"This is purely financial," he said. "We're very well-supported."