Talks heat up at Kent Schools budget meeting

How would you cut the Kent School District budget?

That was the $6-$12 million question district residents have been pondering over the last week, following a move by the Kent School Board to put the district’s budget crisis into a real-life exercise, with an online budget survey.

The district put the questionnaire on its Web site last week, asking locals to decide what programs they thought should be cut for the following school year, so that Kent could absorb a loss of between $6 million and $12 million, largely from the state.

Those results were tabulated and presented to the board at its meeting April 14, where the board, after expressing considerable anguish over the decision, moved on a real-life, budget-reduction plan.

While roughly 1,400 people filled out the survey, a few dozen showed up at a public hearing Monday to let their school board know they weren’t happy about the painful decision-making the survey entailed.

“I truly resent the implication that I support cutting out counseling (for elementary schools),” said Judy Rohm, one of the first speakers, who expressed umbrage the district would put that kind of service on the chopping block.

“I haven’t spoken to one person who thought this was fair,” Rohm told the board during her allotted 2-minute presentation. If it was “truly a collaborative effort,” she said, every district expense would have been included on the survey, for residents to evaluate in terms of priority.

Kent Elementary teacher Nancy Hill told the board she couldn’t bring herself to fill the survey out.

“I can’t do that (choose to cut programs and staff) and I resent that you even asked me to,” she said. “It hurts my heart.”

A number of the speakers were members or officials from the Kent teachers’ union, the Kent Education Association, and they chided the board on the district’s policy of maintaining a 5 percent reserve fund, in spite of having to absorb an anticipated funding gap. It was a similar argument to what KEA expressed the previous year, during a contentious series of contract negotiations that wound up turning into a several-week teacher’s strike in September. That two-year contract, which union and district negotiators hammered together in the midst of those strikes, remains in place and keeps teachers from striking, unless there is a breach of contract.

KEA Vice President Connie Compton told the board at the hearing that in tough economic times, families everywhere were dipping into their saving accounts to make ends meet, and the Kent School District should do the same.

“Families must depend on their savings,” she said, noting afterward that “we think they (district officials) have a very conservative approach about they way they keep their money in the bank.”

She also criticized the manner in which the survey was designed, noting that in order to gain the required 60 points (a certain number of points given for every cut, with 60 being the number to reach to balance the budget) “reducing staff was the only way to accumulate these points.”

Speaking after the hearing, School Board President Debbie Straus acknowledged the difficult choices that people had to make, in filling out the survey. But she took exception to KEA’s perception that the reserve fund was an account that could be dipped into at will for programs that would continue needing a steady funding source.

Straus described the fund as a 5 percent balance, in addition to other funds that have been allocated for specific expenses, but which have not yet been used. That 5 percent, she said, was worth about 10 days of district expenses, as well as to cover expenses that state dollars hadn’t yet been received. The reserve fund also enables the district to maintain a good bond rating, to ensure cost-effective construction programs in the district, she added.

Spending down those funds is a one-shot deal.

“Once it’s spent, it’s gone,” Straus said.

Other speakers expressed their concerns over specific programs that were identified in the survey as cutt-able.

The district’s judo club, a tradition in Kent since the 1950s, was one of those programs.

“I can’t see throwing that away,” said John A. Phillips, a supporter of the program, who noted the program is now in its 43rd year of high-school exchanges with Japan, and which has generated more than 150 black belts and college leaders over the years.

“This is not a program to scrap for $12,000,” Phillips said, referring to the price tag allotted to the program in the budget survey.

Another speaker simply gave thanks for the opportunity to look at the district budget picture.

“I do appreciate even this bit of collaborative input to allow us to have a say,” said Jamila Page, who works in the district’s human-resources department, and who has students in Kent schools.

Straus told the audience by meeting’s end that she appreciated their input, and wanted to continue getting their input on future spending plans.

“I look forward to the day when you can advise us on how to spend millions of dollars” (rather than cut millions),” she said.

She also encouraged people to talk to their legislators about making education a funding priority.

“Please let them know you care about kids,” she said.

Timeline

While the state Legislature has gone into overtime to wrangle with a $2.8 billion funding gap, the Kent School District has its own deadlines to abide by. Without a clear sense of what money will be coming from the state, the district is still on the string to observe a May 15 deadline for announcing staff layoffs for the following school year. In order to make that deadline, the school board will act on a budget-reduction plan Wednesday. The plan will deal with the $6 million to $12 million range of anticipated lost revenue.

The district’s final budget won’t be determined until later this summer.