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Post date: May 18, 2010 12:47:07 AM
On May 17 the Board of Education approved the 2010-2011 budget plan previously recommended by the Superintendent's Budget Development Committee, but including three revisions which were recommended by Superintendent Quinn:
Site "705" budgets, which pay for instructional supplies and the like, will be cut 25% at all sites except Jane Phillips and Oak Park, where they will be cut 12.5%. (The original plan would have cut the site budgets 35% at most sites and 22.5% at those two elementary schools.) This change was explicitly endorsed by the BEA at the meeting.
Two science positions, one at the Mid-High and one at the Senior High, will be retained which were previously shown as being reduced. Contrary to media reports, the BEA did NOT endorse nor oppose this change. Granger Meador stated at the meeting that he endorsed this change as the science department chair, NOT in his role as the BEA Chief Negotiator.
All of the proposed increases in extra duty increments were funded. The plan originally funded $19,198 in increases in academic, music, and athletic increments. Now an additional $17,830 in other athletic increment increases will be made, per the committee recommendation, bringing the total cost of the increases to $37,028. These increases were proposed by a committee that included BEA representation and should make all extra duty increments competitive with our peer districts. Many of them had been frozen for a decade or more.
There was extensive discussion among the board members about dipping further into the fund balance and how that might save more teaching positions, help pay for math textbooks which are not being purchased under the current plan, etc. Their clear intent at this point is to see what the state cuts actually turn out to be (the legislature is expected to act within the next nine days), have the Superintendent's Budget Development Committee reconvene to reprioritize and reconsider their recommendation in light of that funding, and the Board would then consider any changes in the budget plan at its scheduled special meeting on June 3.
Here is a list of the budget changes being made under the currently adopted plan (they are no longer in strict priority order):
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