School District Will Issue 15 Layoff Notices

As the School Board moves closer to approving its 2013-14 budget, the seemingly annual staff reductions again became a reality Monday.

The School Board met in closed session prior to its meeting to approve sending out 15 layoff notices by the May 15 deadline. The district is reducing staffing by 12.46 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees. Therefore, some of the layoffs are with employees who aren’t at a full-time level.

Layoffs will be felt at all levels in the district, and the district is also adding positions as needed in the schools. The School Board approved issuing the notices during its public meeting following closed session. 

The School Board is facing another revenue gap, which has been estimated at $2.4 million based on budget assumptions. The district has tightened its purse strings, and reduced its health and retirement obligations in an effort to bridge the gap. They reduced overtime hours and have also frozen staff pay rather than implement a 2.5 percent increase.

Many of the budget parameters are based on assumptions, which can only be solidified once the legislature approves the state biennium budget.

The district still has a roughly $144,000 gap to close based on assumptions – if a $70,000 placeholder position isn’t utilized. A placeholder is created in case enrollments are such that an additional staffing is needed.

However, the district could see additional savings through retirements that haven’t been announced yet. Superintendent Patricia Greco said they would like to avoid overcutting, rather than cut too early in the budget process.

“It’s always hard on the first year of a two-year biennium budget because we don’t have all the information when we are making staffing decisions,” Greco said.

Currently, Gov. Scott Walker is proposing a freeze in the revenue limit for school districts. The revenue limit is the dollar amount a district can generate for each student based on the state funding formula. If state legislators agree to raise the revenue limit by $150, the district could see a net increase of $56,000. That would further trim the gap between expenditures and revenues.

The district would like face another $2.1 million deficit next year based on proposals for the state budget.

The next meeting for the budget will be held at 6:30 p.m. May 1 at the high school for a casual budget round table discussion with the community.