USD 259 board to consider proposal to cut $4.2M
The Wichita School Board will consider on Monday a list of potential cuts that could shave $4.2 million from the district’s budget.
Proposed cuts include reducing overtime by 50 percent, reducing district-supported field trips, extending technology replacements, eliminating four school resource officer positions and implementing a district-wide shut down from Dec. 23 through Jan. 2.
The district is trying to keep cuts as far away from the classroom as possible as it tries to reduce its budget by $25 million. USD 259 already has trimmed $2.5 million by altering the start and end times at eight elementary schools. That change eliminates the need for more than 70 buses to run extra routes.
Phase one cuts and the proposed second round of reductions amount $6.7 million.
Here’s a look at some of the proposed cuts and the amounts they could save:
• Reduce overtime by 50 percent — $1.5 million.
• Reduce district-supported field trip transportation at the elementary level — $100,000.
• Extend the district’s five-year technology replacement plan to six years — $500,000.
• Reduce meeting/conference/workshop expenses — $365,968.
• Reduce mileage reimbursement rate from 50 and a half cents per mile to 25 cents — $300,000.
• Delay purchase of student textbook adoptions — $1 million.
• Suspend new appointments to the Grow Your Own Teacher program — $50,000.
• Implement a district-wide winter shut down from Dec. 23 through Jan. 2, 2011 — $120,000.
• Eliminate the remaining four school resource officers at the district’s middle schools — $232,710.
Additional cuts will be determined in the coming months.
Filed under: finance by Wolf