The Lakota Board of Education will meet in special session at the school district’s central office, 5572 Princeton Road in Liberty Township, at 6:30 p.m. Monday.
According to the release, the school board will hold the work session to discuss financial planning and may discuss any other business that may lawfully be considered.
This will be the first time since the eve of Election Day that members of the Lakota Board of Education have met publicly.
Many of those school officials did meet, however, on Election Night to witness its proposed tax levy fail for the third time in the past 18 months. The school district has not passed a levy since 2005.
Two days after voters turned down the levy (roughly 54 percent against and 46 percent for) Lakota Superintendent Karen Manita wrote in a letter to the community that “budget cuts are inevitable.” She also wrote, “In the coming weeks, we will be thoroughly reviewing our budget to see where we should make cuts. We will act with urgency.”
Prior to the election, Mantia told community members during the first Lakota levy informational session that she “won’t even consider reassessing busing if the levy fails.”
Mantia, who officially started serving as Lakota’s superintendent Aug. 1, acknowledged the problems that state minimum transportation has caused. She said that she has been to every school and witnessed the traffic caused when the school district cut busing service to nearly 8,000 students in 2011.
According to Lakota Treasurer Jenni Logan, the district is receiving less revenue than it did in 2007. If the levy passed, Logan told community members during that informational session that the additional “revenue would stabilize Lakota’s budget.”
According to Logan, Lakota is scheduled to have a $6.8 million spending deficit in 2012. By 2015, the budget shortfall grows to more than $12.8 million. If the levy passed, the spending deficit would have disappeared until 2015.
At that time, Mantia told the community that she could “make cuts strategically” if the levy passes or go into “crash and burn mode” if the levy fails.
When asked what would happen during “crash and burn mode,” Mantia didn’t announce what cuts the school district would be making. She did, however, point out that since 77 percent of Lakota’s expenses are personnel – the cuts would have to start there.
After Lakota’s levy failed last November, the Lakota Board of Education 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.
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