GARY — The Gary School Board shot down a suggestion to close Webster Elementary School in Glen Park, but apparently backed an idea to move more of the city’s gifted students to one school.
In a Saturday morning work session, the board also heard suggestions from Superintendent Myrtle Campbell and her staff to cut up to one-third of the teaching and certified staff and almost 20 percent of the district’s administrators.
The goal is to balance a budget in the face of a $14 million shortfall for calendar year 2011 and a $29 million shortfall next year.
“We’ve got to make some serious changes,” said board member Darren Washington. “The money we’re losing is not coming from our per child allocation. It’s coming from what’s happened at the legislature.”
Property tax caps, Gary’s low tax collection rates and serious depopulation have decimated the school district’s finances, forcing board members to make deep cuts in staffing and buildings.
The loss of the degholster factor, an accounting device that allowed public schools to spread out the loss of per child allocations from the state over three years, and the state’s elimination of grants to make up for losses from property tax caps have added up to a perfect storm of funding dilemmas for the district.
By law, the board has to pass its 2012 budget by Nov. 1. Board President Kenneth Stallings said he also wants to board to pass the revised 2011 budget by the end of this school year in June.
Even with the proposed budget cuts, the district will need to get rid of another $700,000 from the 2011 budget and $7 million from the 2012 budgets to balance them.
The board rejected closing Webster and sending those students to other schools in the area. If the district’s competition with charter and private schools is stepped up with new state laws favoring charters, it doesn’t make sense to do something that will send more students — and the money that comes with them — to the competition, said board member and former high school principal Marion Williams.
“We have to do something more different and more innovative than the charter schools,” he said. “Everything that’s brand new doesn’t make it great.”
There are no direct dollar savings to transferring high-ability sixth- through eighth-graders at Banneker Academy and high-ability high schoolers at West Side to Wirt-Emerson Visual Performing Arts in Miller, Campbell said, but it’s part of ensuring a strong learning environment for the students.
The board appeared to favor the idea.
The administration based its budget slashing suggestions on trying to achieve a 28:1 student-teacher ratio with an expected 9,000 student population, with each child being allotted about $8,400 in funding.
Between 276 and 300 teachers, nearly one-third, would be cut, saving an estimated $23 million over two years, while cutting only one-fifth of the administrators at the central office would save $2.2 million over two years.
Also per Campbell’s suggestions, reducing support staff like nurses, counselors and social workers would save about $1.6 million in two years, while cutting all overtime for custodians, janitors and maintenance personnel would save about $600,000.
The board also heard from facilities manager Don Estill, who offered using district workers and a contractor for buildings, grounds and maintenance. If the district cuts 55 percent of those workers, they would hopefully be absorbed for a contractor working second shifts in the schools while the remaining 45 percent would remain district employees who might work four 10-hour days during the week.
That drew early opposition from Williams, who suggested outsourcing work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially when jobs are tough to come by.
“We wouldn’t think about outsourcing the central administration, would we?” he said.
The board also asked Campbell to provide more narratives, details and additional options in her suggestions.