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School leaders who had been bracing for a 3 percent state funding cut in March got a gut-punch on Thursday when state officials handed them an additional 4 percent reduction.
“I’ve been sick to my stomach,” Wagoner Superintendent Randy Harris said. “We are going to start spit-balling ideas, but I don’t know if anybody has an absolute, great answer at this point. We’ve got to shift the monkey off the schools’ back and put it back on the Legislature’s back.”
Although state education officials won’t notify schools of their cuts in dollars and cents until next week, Tulsa Public Schools officials say they will lose at least another $2 million — on top of January’s $2.1 million state funding cut.
First-year Superintendent Deborah Gist said she was “deeply disappointed” by Thursday’s news.
“To manage the first mid-year cut, we have already made incredibly difficult decisions to identify reductions that minimize classroom impact,” Gist said. “A reduction of this magnitude means that we will again have to evaluate one critical service against another and ultimately, none of these choices best serve our students, teachers and families.”
She added, “Oklahomans must come together to ensure adequate funding for our schools — failing to do so not only hurts our students, but limits our advancement as a community.”
After the first round of state budget cuts in January, TPS announced it would cover the loss with savings to the tune of $900,000 for workers compensation, $501,000 from a limited hiring freeze, $547,000 from vacant positions and $97,000 in travel costs. And another $120,000 budgeted for professional development will simply not be spent.
Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences is a highly sought-after charter high school that has been preparing to relocate to a new facility and begin an expansion into middle school grades in 2016-17.
Executive Director Eric Doss said because charter schools like his are almost solely reliant on state funding, the midyear cuts are particularly difficult to manage.
“We don’t have any local funds to kind of buoy us up. Because we’re so far into the year, what it’s going to do is hurt our carryover balance and we’ve spent the last five years trying to build that up,” Doss said. “Our enrollment will be 375 and we’ve got 240 kids already on our waiting list, so there’s a real desire for what we’re doing.
“It’s very frustrating. We can’t cut transportation; we don’t have transportation. We can’t cut sports; we only have cross country.”
A number of districts across the state have notified state education leaders that they will immediately abandon the traditional, five-day school week for a four-day week, in hopes of eking out some monetary savings.
According to data from the Oklahoma State Department of Education, at least 35 school districts began the 2015-16 with four-day school weeks by lengthening the number of minutes in the school day.
Oktaha Public Schools is among the districts making the switch now, with Friday’s class day off the first of many to come, said Superintendent Jerry Needham.
“We had enough snow days built into the calendar to go ahead and do the four-day week now. It serves two purposes: one is to save money and the other was for people to experience a four-day week — students, parents, community,” Needham said. “Unless you shorten the contract days for personnel, you’re talking about saving one percent. One percent for us is $60,000. We’re down where one percent matters.”
Needham has already laid off 11 of his district’s 45 support employees since Christmas, including custodians and teacher’s assistants.
The devastating cuts are painting a clearer picture of the even harsher realities public schools face for fiscal year 2017, when state revenue collections are expected to run lower still.
“Curriculum, programs, personnel, activities, transportation, four-day week. There’s not anything — especially after the announcement today — there’s not anything any school can say is not on the table for consideration to be cut next year,” Needham said.
In November, Wagoner Public Schools leaders began a conversation with their teachers and parents about the possibility of switching to a four-day school week for the 2016-17 academic year. Superintendent Harris estimates the move would save his district up to $200,000, the equivalent of about four teachers’ salaries.
He is preparing to take the recommendation to the local school board at its meeting on Tuesday, but now he’s contemplating whether the switch could be made immediately to help balance the current year’s budget.
Wagoner stands to lose $305,000 on top of the $145,000 it was cut by the state in January. Harris said district officials had identified up to $270,000 in cuts and planned to use carryover funds to balance their budget, but Thursday’s action will require additional spending cuts.
“I’ve got to see if the squeeze is worth the juice,” Harris said. “I don’t want our teachers to feel pressure to get the material covered before testing and before the end of the year. If we waited until next year, we would have the ability to plan — but when our boat is sinking, we’ve got to figure out a way to plug the holes.”
