Albion School Board approves stripped-down budget; district still would be $700,000 in the red next year

Cuts to athletics and transportation are inescapable for Albion Public Schools after the school board passed a budget for the 2011-12 school year tonight that will run a deficit.

Even with proposed cuts that essentially trim the athletic department budget in half and reduce transportation costs by $250,000, the district will fall almost $1.2 million short of expected expenditures. That would leave the district with a negative fund balance projected at greater than $700,000 by next July.

“We can come very close to balancing a budget if we eliminate all transportation, if we eliminate all athletics, if we eliminate all non-Michigan Merit course activities. said school board President Dan Skean. “But I still don’t think we’re going to strike a balanced budget,”

“Any stakeholder should have a great concern because this says a lot about the financial health of our district.”

The approved budget does not take into account potential savings the district could realize from a new teachers contract that is still being negotiated.

Accounting supervisor John Waugh said the “heavy lifting” has only begun in balancing a budget that is trying to account for a $1.1 million decline in state funding compared to the 2010-11 school year.

The school board, with the help of the incoming interim superintendent, will help Waugh submit a deficit elimination plan to the state later this year.

The approved budget includes shrinking the athletics budget from $227,000 to $111,000.

Athletic Director Brad Shedd said he’s not sure how gate receipts or his salary (which is partially funded by the general fund) figure into those numbers, but cuts are unavoidable.

“At this moment right now, just having these numbers presented to me, I don’t see how it will work without some cuts of something,” he said. “Start with like any freshmen programs we have, like freshmen boys basketball, and start working your way through things and see how the numbers look.“

Skean said the board would not “micromanage” the athletics departments by deciding what programs should be cut, but the district’s “qualified professionals” will be forced to operate under the new budget constraints.

Waugh said the district is working with Dean Transportation to determine the most feasible way to cut $250,000 from that division of expenditures.

“We’ve looked at other options like eliminating all regular education transportation. We’ve looked at transportation just outside of Albion’s city limits. We’ve looked at running buses for the months November through March,” Skean said.

“These are scary things to families to have to consider, but more and more school districts are considering them.”
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As published in the Jackson Citizen Patriot on June 29, 2011