COUNCIL BLUFFS -- Some teachers and other staff members of the Council Bluffs Community School District may be looking for new jobs soon, and taxpayers may be looking for more money to pay taxes. Both are possible as the district addresses a shortfall of more than $5 million.
School board members are not happy about the prospect of reducing the staff by as many as 93 employees, a figure that includes 73 teachers. Attrition and retirements will reduce the number to be laid off, but 24 teachers are expected to soon get their notice.
“We recruited the best and the brightest, and now we'll tell some of these teachers to go somewhere else,” board President Marvin Arnpriester told other board members last week. “It makes my stomach turn. Ninety-three people. It just boggles my mind.”
The school board has to confront the fiscal issue for the 2010-11 budget soon. The district had to publish its proposed tax rate the amount by which it wants to raise taxes for the cash reserve levy 10 days in advance of an April 13 public hearing.
The board will consider raising the district property tax levy from the current $16.80 for each $1,000 of a home's taxable valuation. The taxable valuation is the assessed valuation multiplied by the state rollback, which will be set at 46.9 percent for the 2010-11 fiscal year.
The board last week authorized publication of a $19 per $1,000 rate, although members agreed they would set a lower tax rate after the hearing. Once the proposed rate is published for the public hearing, it can be lowered but it cannot be raised.
“Given we don't know where we'll wind up financially, we should publish the higher rate for more flexibility,” board member Gina Primmer said. “We have to levy an incredibly uncomfortable amount of taxes on working families, and it's very, very painful … but we're treading water. We don't have the money. We don't have options. We're stuck. It's not going to be better next year.”
The district said last fall that layoffs were likely after Iowa Gov. Chet Culver announced 10-percent across-the-board budget cuts in October, eliminating more than $4.5 million from the Council Bluffs' schools budget.
The district expects to begin the 2010-11 school year with 42 fewer elementary school teachers, 15 fewer high school teachers, nine fewer special education teachers and four fewer middle school teachers. The district also will lose three preschool teachers, two administrators, one health worker, 13 para-educators and four secretaries.
Besides fewer teachers, the end result could be larger class sizes in some classrooms.
The district earlier this year considered and rejected the idea of asking voters to approve a surtax on state income tax liability as a way to avoid raising property taxes.
The state will cover a set percentage of a school district's budget, but the district is required by the state school-finance formula to cover the rest of the spending through local property taxes.
The district's yearly budget of about $97 million is used to educate 9,300 students, pay 1,220 employees and maintain 20 buildings. Tapping the cash reserves was the only option for the current school year, since salaries and benefits were locked in by union contracts.
The district at one point had a little more than $7 million in cash reserves, but has been using the reserves for payroll and expenses. The district will have less than $2 million in the fund by the end of the current school year.
The district has been cutting costs by delaying purchases, setting thermostats lower and restricting overtime except for emergencies. The board also will close Pusey Elementary at the end of this school year and Gunn Elementary and Washington Elementary next year.
School construction and renovation work have continued because sales and property tax revenues generated specifically for such work cannot be used to make up a shortage in the general fund balance and are not affected by the cuts.
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