10/24/08

Suburban News

Khalila Perrin

* Additional tax revenues won’t stop district leaders from trimming budget growth.

Whether district officials find themselves cheering or crying on Nov. 4, Columbus’ school district still has aggressive cost-cutting measures ahead, said district Superintendent Gene Harris.

On the ballot is Issue 75, the district’s combination 7.85-mill operating levy and $164-million 1.13-mill bond issue.

The bond, if approved, will allow the district to move into the third segment of its facilities overhaul plan, which includes the renovation or construction of 10-12 buildings. It also would fund the purchase of new buses, textbooks and computers.

Tax dollars generated by the operating levy, which would raise $77 million annually, mainly would fund teacher salaries, operations and several new initiatives during the next four years.

Its expected to cost homeowners $275 per $100,000 of home valuation annually. The current average home value in the district is $110,876, according to the Franklin County Auditor’s office.

Despite the influx of funds a “Yes” vote would create, the administration has determined $76 million still needs to be trimmed from anticipated budget growth during the same timespan. The administration isn’t ready to share and hasn’t quite developed a plan as to where the cuts will be made, Harris said.

“One of the reasons we haven’t thrown a lot out there is because we really have the life of the levy and we want to be as thoughtful as we possibly can,” said Harris.

The Board of Education promised in August it would not return to the ballot with another operating levy until at least 2012.

What’s certain is that a portion of the $76 million would include cuts to “longer term kind of operational” functions, Harris explained.

“For example, workers comp is a place that we would like to make some inroads in. If we can reduce those costs, then I don’t impact the classroom,” she said.

The goal is to insulate the classroom from the cuts as much as possible, she added.

Some skeptical voters have suggested the district’s central office personnel as one area in which the district needs to trim the fat. In May, the district’s budget office reported an 11.78 percent increase in its budgeted administration costs for fiscal year 2009 over 2008 — or an increase of $19.3 million to $21.6 million.

The same report shows the positions that come under the heading of the administration category remains at 138 employees as in fiscal year 2008. The category consists of administrative functions, such as the school board, the offices of the chief financial officer and chief operating officer, and fiscal functions such as payroll, budget, and all treasury operations

But the figures are misleading, said Harris.

“What has grown is a category called ‘administration’ and the state accounting system tells us how we have to account for certain things,” said Harris.

“It’s not more people; It’s just a reclassification in the accounting system,” she added. “The area is called ‘administration,’ not administrators.”

The reclassification of the expenses that come under the heading of administrative costs included the addition of operations contingency funds, district Executive Budget Director Robyn Essman explained.

“The increase in the administration area was not staffing at all,” said Essman.

“It was actually an area of administrative expenses that are accounting fees and contingencies built in for emergencies that may not even be used.”

A $600,000 contingency covers the costs of increasing fuel prices and emergency building repairs, to name a few, said Essman. The district also increased, by about $600,000, the budgeted amount for the purchase of state and county auditing services.

The idea that the administration is spending more on central office administrators is “not correct,” said Harris.

“The majority of the administrators that we have in the district are out in the buildings,” she said.

“I have fewer than 90 central office administrators and those individuals are responsible for everything in this 123-building, 220-square-mile covering, 53,000-enrollment-bearing school district.”

If voters don’t support Issue 75, Harris said, the district could return to the ballot early next year, but that would depend on a decision of the school board.