{"id":295,"date":"2007-05-24T09:14:52","date_gmt":"2007-05-24T17:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2007\/05\/24\/schools-brace-for-budget-detail-list-of-cuts\/"},"modified":"2007-05-24T09:14:52","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T17:14:52","slug":"schools-brace-for-budget-detail-list-of-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2007\/05\/schools-brace-for-budget-detail-list-of-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools brace for budget, detail list of cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer <\/em><\/p>\n<p>This budget season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back-and-forth is not just another year of budget negotiations, Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools Superintendent Neil Pedersen told parents at a budget meeting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Pedersen outlined a number of potential budget cuts the schools could face if the district does not receive its requested budget, and stressed the importance of a tax rate increase.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we look at the magnitude of the shortfall this year, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way to make reductions that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t impact the children,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Board of County Commissioners has said it hopes to limit this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tax increase to equal the amount of debt-service payment increases \u00e2\u20ac\u201c about 3.5 cents on the tax rate \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to provide tax relief to county residents. The county has increased the tax rate about six cents in each of the last two years.<\/p>\n<p>The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education has requested a $7.3 million budget increase from the county. According to Pedersen, about $5 million of that request would fund state-mandated salary increases, new school openings and enrollment growth throughout the district.<\/p>\n<p>Without an increase in the special district tax or the county per-pupil rate, school revenue would increase about $1.5 million, creating a shortfall of approximately $5.7 million, Pedersen said. To limit the shortfall, the school budget committee prepared a list of potential cuts that would reduce the budget request to $5.2 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Even with that pretty conservative approach, without getting anything new that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve asked for, no enhancement to programs, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d still be about 3.7 million short,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n<p>The school budget committee also identified about $5.7 million in budget cuts, which include new programs as well as current programs, positions and salaries.<\/p>\n<p>One budget cut would reduce the number of teacher assistants by 50 positions across the district to save about $1.5 million. The majority of those positions would be cut from elementary schools, with about five less teacher assistants per elementary school.<\/p>\n<p>With 23 teacher assistant vacancies, about 27 teacher assistants would lose their jobs.<br \/>\nAnother potential budget reduction would freeze local salary supplements for certified staff and administrators at this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s levels to save about $400,000. If local supplements were frozen, a teacher with 10 years experience would earn $281 less annually than if the supplements increased normally.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It would be better for everybody to take a smaller hit so we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lose staff members and the services that they provide,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n<p>Other potential cuts include eliminating funding for the dual-language program and the gifted-education program, as well as funding for athletics other than coaches\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 stipends.<\/p>\n<p>To limit the elimination of programs and services, Pedersen said the schools have identified areas to save funds through efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>Pedersen said that if both the county and district tax were increased and the schools continued to find savings, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that we could get fairly close to being able to continue what we have today.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>However, he added, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably very little on that list [of new programs] that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be able to do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Susan Dickson Staff Writer This budget season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back-and-forth is not just another year of budget negotiations, Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools Superintendent Neil Pedersen told parents at a budget meeting on Tuesday. Pedersen outlined a number of potential budget cuts the schools could face if the district does not receive its requested budget, and stressed the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}