Last week Riverside-Brookfield High School Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann outlined a series of tentative budget cuts that would cut at least $618,000 and perhaps as much as $663,000 from RB’s education fund budget next year.
Baldermann said the cuts could be achieved without drastically affecting the quality of the education offered to students and will require the layoffs of only two or three current employees.
“Overall we’re going to deliver a quality education to our students, but we’re making deep, significant cuts,” said Baldermann last week at a meeting of the District 208 school board’s finance committee that was attended by six of the seven board members.
Last month, the school board directed the administration to cut $500,000 from the fiscal year 2009 budget. Baldermann said he sought to find an additional $130,000 in cuts, because RB is required by its contract with the teachers union to make a $130,000 payment to the Illinois Teacher Retirement System to pay the early-retirement penalty for a teacher who is retiring in June.
To save money RB plans to cut staff and not offer some courses with low enrollment. Advanced Placement art history and AP world history will probably not be offered next year. The bulk of the savings, $325,000 to $380,000, will come from savings on salaries and a slight reduction in teaching positions.
The English Department will lose one full-time position. Retiring English teacher Suzanne Grady will not be replaced, resulting in a savings of about $110,000. Retiring wellness teacher Eileen Breslin will be replaced with a part-timer, resulting in savings of about $50,000.
The math department will lose one part-time teacher ($20,000), and a science a teacher on maternity leave will not be replaced ($40,000). A part-time French teacher ($35,000) who has resigned will also not be replaced.
One academic support position will be eliminated (savings of $30,000) and the Social Studies Department will also lose a teacher, saving about $70,000. Savings in the Special Education Department are to be determined. An additional $30,000 in salary savings could be achieved from further cuts.
“We’ve cut staff two years in a row,” said Tim Scanlon, assistant principal of curriculum and instruction.
Class sizes will increase slightly, according to a two-sheet summary handed out at the meeting. Scanlon said that he could not give a precise estimate of class sizes expected next year.
Another $143,000 will be saved by cutting spending on textbooks, parent/community events, catering, athletic supplies and summer pay for teachers. Cuts in spending on textbooks will be partially offset by money RB is getting from a state program.
Baldermann said he expects to save another $120,000 to $140,000 by cutting stipends, reduced spending on supplies, outplacement tuition and other miscellaneous cuts.
Three or four athletic coaching stipends will be eliminated, and four or five stipends for club advisors may also be cut. There will also be less spending for traveling to workshops and conferences.
“Everybody gave something up,” Baldermann said.
Baldermann said that it was a remarkable achievement to find such significant savings with a stable enrollment.
“We have the same enrollment this year to next year and we’re savings hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Baldermann said.
The school board expects to pass a preliminary budget by June; the final budget won’t be approved by the board until September.
“This is still a work in progress,” Baldermann said.
School board finance Chairwoman MariAnn Leibrandt was happy with the presentation.
“I think it was a very good start,” Leibrandt said.