Juneau School District Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich had little good news for the newly created budget committee’s second meeting Tuesday night.
“Next week you will get a budget proposal from (a group of administrators) who have put hours and hours,” Gelbrich said. “And I can tell you without exception it was unbelievably difficult. The cuts we made were on top of cuts we've made already.”
JSD has lost around 90 positions in the last three years.
Gelbrich and his administrative team of principals and managers will turn a draft budget over to the committee.
“To their credit,” Gelbrich said of the team, “they came up with a budget they support. It was just these unbelievable tradeoffs. And all of the people in this room will get to feel that.”
The committee has the discretion to add and remove items from the budget. However, Gelbrich warned that any addition in one place will have to come with a reduction in another. JSD does not have reserves, he said.
“Our board has put all the money on the table,” Gelbrich said.
Gelbrich said he would explain some of the tradeoffs when he unveils the team’s draft budget at the budget committee’s next meeting on Jan. 29. Committee members will not have access to the budget prior to the public.
Committee members expressed some disillusionment about working with such an austere budget.
“It feels like we've been punched in the gut.” Michael Heiman, committee representative for the Juneau Education Association, said. “Just like last year. When we don't have the funding it is really hard to be excited by this.”
Heiman said after the meeting that he may feel the pain of the cuts because of his job, but it is the kids who are the one who really feel the affects of a reduced school staff.
Gelbrich said the budget would reflect that in a tight budget the school district couldn’t single out certain kids to receive more resources.
"We must do a smaller number of things really well," Gelbrich said.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (26)
Add commentBudget Cuts
Not a suprise given the duplicative nature of many of the administrative positions within the school district. Two schools are abound to add additional burden to the budget (simple math). Perhaps a shared administrative unit, may not half the administrative positions but would provide some benefit.
Outside that, are two schools really needed? Please, please don't just cut the teachers and those who provide a direct benefit to the students, please look at reducing some of the administrative overhead. A little pain in the offices would go a long way to affirming a sense of solidarity among all staff and the public.
Yep
This could prove interesting...
The school board
just had to have the second school because 'there is free state money to build it" where is all that state money to run it? School board? Andi Story? Also too many programs started with "the stimulus" that just need to stop now. That money dried up and the programs should too. They may very well help the students, but there is no more money to run them.
New budget cycle, same story
It is always the same rhetoric at the start of every budget cycle with the JSD, massive budget cuts coming. The Empire reports and the Legislature funds and by May by some act of God, JSD will spend nearly $20,000 per child and about 40 percent will drop out after hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on them.
When will parents and the public get off this merry-go-round of abject failure and privatize education?
I still challenge the board
I still challenge the board to demand a spreadsheet of ALL JSD positions, salaries and duties. Lets see how much these admin types are making and what they are doing for it. How important are they, really to the education of the kids? It IS about the kids, right?
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- duplicate
Plenty of Fat
There are many high salary administration jobs that could and should be cut. These non- teaching positions have grown exponentially while classrooms are more crowded than in the era before oil money. Cut the make-work non-classroom jobs and close Thunder Mountain and sell the property, if you really care about educating kids.
Vouchers!
This is an informal poll:
If parents were given a voucher of say $19,300 per school age child for education, how many parents would choose JSD?
less than 50%
between 51% and 75%
More than 75%
Travel
Have we looked at the amount of travel the administrators are doing? Does the superintendent really need to be traveling that much?
51% - 75%
51% - 75%
@fluetsch
People always quote the high numbers, but the voucher would not be that much.
That cost includes the school buildings, heating oil, insurance, bus costs, etc.
If you look at how much is spent on school districts, it comes down to infrastructure and salaries of staff.
If each parents would send a quick email to their child's principal stating what teacher or program is ineffective, it would help them make those decisions.
But folks just like to complain in anonymity.
half the students means half the buildings, oil etc
Well they would still need to have heating, teachers, buildings, insurance, buses and stuff at the private school too, right? Your comment makes no sense middleofhteroad, you on the School Board? but speaking of complaining in anonymity.... you. Put your name there!
Winter Break
The FY13 budget is $92,475,600. The current expected funds total $91,917,700. Heating oil and electricity for all of the schools are $1,180,000 and $783,000 respectively.
Maybe it is time to consider a calendar where the students are in school through summer and have a three month break in the winter when you could keep the heat on just high enough to keep the pipes from freezing, and keep the lights off.
I always figured
that the only reason you used yours bjfluetsch, was because you abused the option of anonymity.......several times!
eagle crest
opperating 3/4 of a million bucks in the red, wonder how far that might go retaining some of those 90 positions. Your tax dollars not at work, but the fireworks sure are nice.
Comment
It would be interesting to see total JSD employment compared with the number of students today, and then compare that with the same ratio of 35 years ago. I will bet there was no position called chief of staff 35 years ago, or even 5 years ago.
All municipal government needs to look at the persistent decline in oil production and forecast how they will cope when the state cuts them loose. The JSD needs to somehow have its TRS past-service liability paid or covered by cash reserves by then.
Here's the problem. Until
Here's the problem. Until the union stranglehold on America's education system is broken, expect more of the same. We may be heading in the right direction, however.
From the New York Times -
"The Bureau of Labor Statistics said union membership for private sector workers dropped to 6.6 percent last year, from 6.9 percent in 2011, a drop that has caused some labor leaders to voice fears that unions were steadily fading into irrelevance for many large employers.
The bureau said union membership among public sector employees fell to 35.9 percent in 2012, from 37 percent the previous year, and there were more union members in the public sector (7.3 million) than in the private sector (7 million).
Among states, North Carolina had the lowest unionization rate, 2.9 percent, the B.L.S. report said, followed by Arkansas at 3.2 percent and South Carolina at 3.3 percent. New York had the highest rate, 23.2 percent, followed by Alaska at 22.4 percent and Hawaii at 21.6 percent."
Wait until the teachers' unions start cutting the teachers' hours to below 30 hours a week to avoid paying healthcare premiums. That ObamaCare is going to be a beautiful thing!
1.2 mil in heating fuel?
1.2 mil in heating fuel? Maybe when we are doing all these upgrades, do some energy efficiency and geothermal drilling...
....
1. They will never get rid of the superintendents. All the teachers salivate over getting that overpaid do nothing position.
2. These teachers and administration will cannibalize the whole school district before they take a pay cut.
3. They need to cut all the wages for older teachers and only offer pay increases for new teachers.. The private sector isn't guaranteed annual pay raises. Neither should they be.
From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of December 2010, state and local government employees earned total compensation of $39.60 an hour, compared to $27.42 an hour for private industry workers(Gates, Buffet) - a difference of over 44 percent. This includes 35 percent higher wages and nearly 69 percent greater benefits
Cut the Fat!!!
Time to cut the fat. If our district needs to pare down,,,cut the fat!!!
School Budget Cuts
The person that said close one of the high schools is right on.
IT WAS NOT NEEDED!! ALL high schools are crowed in the halls during class exchange. As was also said The school board had some money that they know what to do with , so the built a new high school. Now both HS are half empty.
Curious
What was last years graduating class size?
I wish I could get my private
I wish I could get my private sector employer to provide me with Cadillac lifetime benefit health care plans. These public servants have gotten to greedy.
@ glasseye and Billb
TMHS was build for 800 students and room for expansion to 1600 or so with the addition of two new wings. they are almost at capacity now. It is a newer and better building than JDHS so I think they should build the extra two wings, move all the students to TMHS since most of them live in the valley anyway. Then turn JDHS into the city office building and stop paying for several floors of the marine view apartment building for city departments, then there will be several floors of the Marine view apts to rent out to people that need housing especially in the downtown area.
Make JDHS City Hall
and sell the downtown City hall property to the tourism industry and stop leasing space in various downtown buildings!
It's Deja Vu all over again...
Didnt need a crystal ball to see this coming.
Remember when contracted district demographers warned of the impending population boom? Waiting......