School board hears $200,000 budget cut plan

The Colfax school board mulled over how to shave more than $200,000 from the school’s already stretched budget at its March 22 meeting.

The target of $200,000 comes in step with a second-round $950,000 levy the board will present to voters in April.

The board passed out a proposal which suggested cutting hours of certified staff (teachers and administrators), shifting more program charges on to students, and trimming back of lights and electrical appliances in both district buildings.

Instead of draining dozens of school programs, superintendent Michael Morgan said laying off three certified staff and bringing back two classified staff would be a better option.

“The ideal method is to reduce three certified staff and bring two classified staff instead of nickel and diming everything to death,” Morgan said.

The upcoming levy of $950,000 will be presented to Colfax voters for the April 27 county election ballot.

Morgan said he’d like to hold off on passing through the ultimate cut of $225,000 until the district knows for sure if the levy has passed. Also, he said, they’d like to hold off on that ultimate cut until the state’s final education budget comes out this spring.

Morgan said the House budget is the kindest to Colfax, leaving in the most funding.

May 14 is the state cutoff date to notify school staff of layoffs.

The proposal considered scaling $40,000 to $100,000 back from district staff, $28,000 from district facilities, $80,000 to $100,000 by shifting some costs to students, and $11,000 by loosening high school graduation requirements.

As the state education budget stood March 22, both the House and Senate had allotted $13,561,188,000 to education- the governor’s budget had $13,514,495.

The other proposal on the table for the board is if the levy doesn’t pass - steep cuts to certified staff - up to a half million dollars -would be felt. All extracurricular activities would have to be cut.