Prepared Notes for Board Meeting – Sustainability
Marc A. Schare
What does it mean to have
a sustainable school district? Some might say that we need to match our expenses
with our anticipated revenues. Others might say we need to plan our programs
with an expectation that
Let me address the last
issue first because if this board and our community is
not absolutely convinced that a problem exists, a
Where does that leave us? Assuming
levy passage, we will arrive at 2012 with a single year annual deficit of 5
million dollars and a requirement to generate 31 million dollars by FY14. This
works out to around an 11.4 mill levy in 2012 that would barely get us to 2014
with a zero cash balance. After that, things really get bad.
So, what does a sustainable
school district look like? To me, the following elements would be incorporated.
1) We have to match
expenses with an assessment of our constituent’s ability and willingness to pay
for a high quality education. In previous years, “willingness” was the sticking
point. Now, quite possibly, ability might be the sticking point. The best levy
argument in the world or the most draconian threats will not work if
2) We need to define what
a high quality education is. My sense after 4 years on this board is that a
high quality education is defined by the status-quo. If we’re not happy with
that definition, we need to do a better job at defining the district we are
attempting to sustain.
Here is my suggestion. The
Treasurer’s advisory committee is the ideal group to discuss issue one. They
agreed at our last meeting that the status-quo is not sustainable and indicated
a desire to begin addressing the bigger picture.
The second issue is harder
as we’ve been trying to define quality for at least 5 years now, but one way of
looking at it is trying to determine how to achieve the biggest bang for the
buck. How do you maximize the learning of every kid that walks through the door. If you had $130 million in revenue, what do you do
differently than if you had $120 million. Our current
efforts as defined by the cut lists define quality by starting with an
assumption that the status-quo meets the quality standard and than determining
which cuts would hurt the least. It might be interesting to turn the
administration lose at what a quality district would look like if the
status-quo was not a consideration. Melissa, what kind of district can I buy
for $120 million dollars in operating money and around $6 million a year in
bond money?
It is my hope that we can
make some progress on both fronts prior to the November vote on the levy. It is
my sense that a levy campaign based solely on the reductions will be met by an
opposition correctly indicating that the bigger threat to our long term ability
to provide a quality education is the one I am describing tonight and that if
we do not begin to address the issue, the programs we believe we will save by
passing the levy will be given only a brief reprieve.
Thoughts?