RE1J school board receives little feedback at public budget hearing

Balancing act has accounted for $1.1 million in losses

Despite an early outpouring of community concern over the Gunnison Watershed RE1J school district’s budget for next year, a public hearing for the proposal Monday June 6 was pretty quiet.

But after watching the cuts stack up over the last three months to cover what has amounted to a $1,125,580 reduction in overall funding, and vetting each one, there wasn’t much to say.
Superintendent Jon Nelson pointed out that the version of the budget reviewed at the hearing Monday would likely look the same as the budget adopted by the school board next week, with no major changes expected.
So while a future with a tighter budget, fewer teachers and a monoculture of programming might be getting closer, it doesn’t look any better than it did from a distance.
District finance director Jan Brummond told the board and a few members of the public, “We started out [the budget process] in March and we didn’t think it would be as bad until the middle of March… The total loss in funding from last year to this year was $641,000. That was just the [cut in] state funding.”
And the district relies on a range of funding to keep the doors open throughout the year, including state and federal funding, grants and an interest-free loan program the state managed to find money for again this year, after some concern it could vanish.
The amount of grants available to the district from the state dropped by more than $20,000 alongside a loss of federal programs like Even Start that grants $117,000 and American Reinvestment and Recovery money.
“Really our total district losses were about $1.1 million,” Brummond said. “Luckily my predecessor had made a lot of cuts last year, so we didn’t need to go quite as deep to get to the $1.1 million to make the budget balance.”
Still, while things aren’t as bad as they could have been, the cuts cost the district about a dozen faculty positions, mostly through resignations and realignment of staff, but at least four teachers had to be fired.
The budget cut that drew the most attention was a recommendation from the district’s Administrative Council to close the Gunnison Valley School, the district’s alternative high school.
The community members who came to the school’s aid, however, required a less drastic solution. Brummond said the decision ultimately came down to “realigning” the program and integrating it into the high school.
From GVS, three teaching positions will be transferred to the Gunnison High School budget, along with all of the expenses to keep the heat and lights working at the GVS building, which sits adjacent to the high school.
So what started out as a plan to cut the district’s expenses by more than $160,000 turned into a savings of about $80,000 and, to some degree, a resurrection of the district’s alternative program from near elimination.
Cutting elementary Spanish district-wide and letting a high school language teacher resign, along with a middle school electives teacher and district librarian, saved the district more than $130,000. Eliminating elementary counseling and one high school counselor will also together save well over $100,000.
The district is also hoping that rearranging its transportation by reducing the number of athletic bus trips and getting coaches the training they need to drive activity buses to sporting events will also bring about more savings. Already the district has purchased four 15-passenger buses that will replace some Chevy Suburbans to reduce the number of full-sized bus trips next year.
“We’ll be meeting with our attorney in the next week to discuss liability issues, hoping to reduce the driving time, that’s the biggest part, and also some fuel costs,” she said.
There will also be $20,000 less going to the Food Service fund, which has been “running in the hole the last couple of years,” according to Brummond. Plus, a $6,000 contract with Pizza Hut to supply the Gunnison Community School with pizza will be allowed to expire.
On the other hand, some costs the district has no control over, like insurance that will spike to cover an expected increase in unemployment benefits, are going up.
But the district’s budget-balancing exercise is also producing some plans to make some money at the schools through the sale of locally grown food and a partnership with the Mountain Roots Food Project, which is going to be purchasing a Harvest of the Month menu for the district to drum up interest in a more healthy, pricier, lunch option.
“We told them we would try [the menu] for one year and if it does increase the program then we would try to find some funding to pay for the cost in another way. Colorado Department of Education is also subsidizing that menu program. So there is some cost to it, but we’ll see if it works,” Brummond said.
After so many factors have played into the balancing of the district’s budget for next year, most of the options for cost-cutting have been explored. Future budgets are banking on an increase in revenue.
Referencing a financial “cliff that we’re told is coming in two years,” board president Anne Hausler said the board would be looking to partner with the newly formed Gunnison Valley Education Foundation. “And we’re not ruling out, as a longer-term strategy, a mil levy too,” she said. “But you can’t do a bond and a mil levy back to back in a bad economy and expect much success.”
Next year, Nelson says, the best chance to improve the budget numbers is likely to come in January, when $67 million that has been earmarked for education will get distributed to the schools. Whether any of that money will come to the local district remains to be seen.
“There could be some change to the budget, however unlikely, in the next few days,” Hausler said. “Unless the sky falls or something… this is the budget we’ll see next week.”
The board will vote on the budget at a meeting on Monday, June 13. To look at the current version of the budget, contact the district at 641-7770.