Gabrielle Russon, Truth Staff
grusson@etruth.com
ELKHART -- It's an unsettling time for educators.
Prices of key commodities are higher than ever, and next year's state funding is still a mystery after Indiana's property tax law changed.
"People who've been around for a long time kind of shrug their shoulders and say, 'Well it's always worked out in the past, and we'll find a way through this, too,'" said Doug Hasler, executive director of support services at Elkhart Community Schools.
"That is a good thought to have -- I don't always have that thought."
Local administrators like Hasler are planning their 2009 budgets months in advance, unsure of the financial ramifications from the new property tax law.
Beginning in 2009, state property taxes will no longer go toward a school district's general fund -- which pays everything from the light bill to teachers' salaries and benefits. The state will now pick up that cost.
Other funds property taxes once covered "have a big question mark behind them" because circuit breakers will cap homeowners' expenses, Hasler said.
"We will run a budget for about six months before we begin to really get hard facts on 'Oh your property tax collections may only be 95 percent of what you anticipated. Or maybe its 97 (percent), or maybe its 92 (percent),'" he said.
"The swing between those numbers is pretty big."
It becomes a complicated guessing game to plan ahead: Looking at the ongoing 2008 numbers to write a 2009 budget and expecting the worst possible prices for fuel and food for the future.
"There's no big golden pot of money anywhere," said George Dyer, superintendent of Concord Community Schools. "We try to estimate, when we build the budget, revenue on the low end, expenditures on the high end, so there's building room."
As school officials wait to know future revenue from property taxes, there's one thing they know for certain: Their expenses aren't getting smaller.
Movin' on up
This spring was the first time Sherry Faulkner felt the crunch of rising food prices.
Milk rose about 4 cents a carton this past school year, said Faulkner, food service director at Goshen Community Schools.
Multiply that amount by 6,000 students, and it adds up -- about $240.
Faulkner decided not to raise milk prices at Goshen schools and won't for food prices next year either.
"We took that hit," she said.
Milk is just too important for growing children, and families are already under enough financial strain, she said.
Other foods on the lunch plate -- such as cheese (prices up 15 percent in 2007) or pasta and rice (up 13 percent)-- are also more expensive, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.
But one of the biggest cost strains for school districts is fuel costs.
AAA reported record gasoline and diesel fuel prices this year, something that hurts Elkhart's fleet of about 150 buses, especially since the buses' 100-gallon tanks are filled with diesel fuel and get 5 miles to 10 miles per gallon.
In 2008, Elkhart schools spent between $500,000 to $600,000 on gas and diesel fuel, with a gallon going for slightly more than $4.
"We thought even before this year that we'd dealt with rising fuel costs," Hasler said. "But clearly what's been happening in the last year or two has been a different order of magnitude compared to anything we've dealt with before."
For next year's budget -- which runs January 2009 to December 2009 -- school officials are estimating on spending about $1 million on fuel.
There's not much else to cut, Hasler said. Most fields trips were eliminated five years ago unless paid by outside funding.
Elkhart isn't alone in its increases.
This year, Concord schools spent $291,213 on fuel -- a 41 percent increase from the 2006-07 school year, according to Larry Jackowiak, assistant superintendent for business.
Cost-saving changes
Elkhart administrators study the small, finely tuned details -- how long a bus is idle, where to consolidate bus stops -- to save money.
"The cost realities we're operating under is really going to demand we re-evaluate everything," Hasler said.
Another option could be raising the athletic participation fee for high schoolers to cover the bus ride to sporting events, he added.
For Faulkner, it's changing the way she orders food.
"We're used to have 10 cases of peanut butter in an order. Now we might have to have that reduced by half," she said because state dollars aren't stretching as far as they used to.
Instead, Faulkner buys more bulk items at Gordon Food Service.
Goshen elementary schools also will use the same lunch menu next year, which Faulkner hopes will cut costs by buying even more things in bulk.
There are other ways to save, too, like purchasing natural gas together with other northern Indiana school districts, Hasler said.
Or buying natural gas when it's cheaper in the summer to use later on.
But for all the tracking prices and planning ahead, no one knows whether gas prices will reach $6 a gallon next year or if future expenses will level off.
"Obviously we're always dealing with uncertainty about the future," Hasler said. "I don't have a crystal ball... (But) we're leaving no stone unturned."