By Kristine Thomas
Both Mt. Angel School District Superintendent Bob Young and Silver Falls School District Superintendent Craig Roessler are nervously anticipating the March state revenue forecast, which is to be released Feb. 20.
What that forecast says will determine the funding school districts receive from the state of Oregon for the remainder of this school year and possibly the next two school years.
“Right now, everything is up in the air,” Young said. “If the economy continues downward, we don’t know how bad the cuts to our district are going to be.”
Schools in Oregon are mainly funded by income tax and some property tax so when those numbers decrease, there is less state school funding, Roessler said.
Mt. Angel school board members unanimously agreed Feb. 9 to cut three days from the schools’ 2008-09 calendar, resulting in savings of $90,000 from staff salaries, Young said. He’s grateful to the district’s staff members for agreeing to have these days cut, along with two additional days, if necessary.
“The three days cut will be the snow days we had in December that we won’t make up,” he said.
If additional days need to be cut, Young said they will be the two days before spring break since students were already scheduled to be out of school for parent-teacher conferences.
“If revenue isn’t coming in, then we are going to have to make reductions,” he said.
Young said he also has placed a hiring and a spending freeze on the district.
He said he hopes he won’t have to lay off employees.
“The last thing we want to do is cut staff in the middle of the school year,” Young said. “That would be disruptive to our students.”
What remains an unknown factor is whether the state Legislature or the federal government will provide some financial support to schools, both superintendents said.
Roessler and Young hope the state legislature will indicate by early March if it plans to help school districts cover some of the revenue shortfall for the 2008-09 school year. The other unknown factor is whether or not the federal stimulus package will include funding for schools.
“Until we receive the March forecast, I won’t know where we stand financially,” Roessler said. “I do know it’s not good news but it makes little sense at this time to begin laying off teachers and reorganizing classrooms until we have a better idea what the forecast is.”
Roessler said school districts basically have few options when funding diminishes. They can reduce the quantity of services by cutting school days or the quality by downsizing staff – thereby increasing class sizes or omitting programs. Or, he added, there may need to be a combination of both a reduction in quantity and quality.
Young said it’s frustrating for school districts to be able to make positive strides in helping students and then be forced to cut budgets again.
In his opinion, he said, the rollercoaster Oregon’s schools are on where funding goes up and down depending on the economy needs to be replaced with a more stable school funding system.
For now, both superintendents have to wait and see what the forecast is and what the state and federal government plans to do.
“We are going to do the very best we can to respond to a situation outside of our control,” Roessler said. “Right now, there are so many unknowns.”
