Lakota Superintendent Karen Mantia told the school board that she is taking her time looking over the budget before she will be close to deciding what will be included in what could be $9 million in reductions by next school year.
“We have to cut $9 million. That is not a great position to be in,” Mantia told the board Monday during its regularly scheduled meeting.
“These will be the conversations we have down the road … I don’t feel like speeding it up because someone wants an answer.”
The “$9 million question” was brought up last week when Mantia told the school board that the district would have to eliminate that amount from its operating budget by next school year.
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The $9 million in cuts will allow Lakota to avoid its spending deficit in 2013, but does not take away the need for additional revenue, according Lakota Treasurer Jenni Logan.
Those cuts are expected to be carried out in the spring, a year after the school district approved a new teacher contract (three years and includes a freeze on step/longevity increases as well as health care concessions) and trimmed $10.2 million off its annual budget in 2011-2012.
During the Monday’s meeting, Mantia reviewed items in a district-wide cost analysis. Manita described the report, as something the district would be doing even if it were not in a financial crisis.
Mantia’s cost analysis broke down each school in the district and its performance. With that data, she hopes that the board of education can reallocate personnel and help each department accomplish its goals.
Logan called the cost analysis as “a work in progress.”
“Everything is tied back to each department’s goals,” Logan said.
New format: The Lakota Board of Education met in a work session format during its regularly scheduled public meeting Monday. School board president Joan Powell announced that the board would meet in a work session format only once a month. The work session format allows only one time period for public comments, compared to the usual two. The new format, however, could change. Powell described tonight’s meeting as a “trial run.”
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