 Making
Dollars and Sense in CSISD
Steve Johnson, Ed.D.
Superintendent
College Station Independent School District
Across our state many schools are being challenged to make financial
ends meet. The significant underfunding of the educational system
in Texas is creating a crisis situation for public schools across
this state, property-wealthy and property-poor school districts alike.
In the College Station Independent School District, providing the
funding necessary for critical educational services and programs
continues to be a challenge.
In 2001, we involved our principals, teachers, administrators and
board members in a process aimed at reducing our expenditures to
create a balanced budget. Once we began this process, we were quickly
confronted with a very difficult decision: do we retain all personnel,
freeze salaries, and cut all other accounts; do we reduce personnel
and maintain other accounts; or do we employ a combination of both?
We chose to reduce staff in order to maintain a level of spending
on instructional supplies and quality professional development, and
to provide for salary increases to reward our remaining staff who
work diligently to meet the needs of our students. Our target for
budget reductions in 2001 was $2.3 million or 5 percent of our operational
budget. Through the efforts of our staff, we were able to reach the
budget reduction target and present a balanced budget.
In order to achieve our
goals, we reduced our staff by 46 positions districtwide. The reductions
in staff were felt in all areas of school
district operations—administrators, teachers, coaches, custodians,
and paraprofessionals. For example, we reduced our custodial staff
by 17 positions by cleaning our classroom areas every other day.
In addition, we reduced our paraprofessional staff by 15 positions,
eliminating some classroom aides, library aides, and/or other instructional
aide-type positions.
Our district, like a number of others, continues to struggle with
budget decisions. Following our work in 2001, we believed that we
were in position to handle future budget woes. With the increased
enrollment we are experiencing in CSISD, however, we were once again
looking at ways to reduce our budget by $2.5 million in order to
provide the resources necessary for the opening of a new elementary
school in 2005. While that is a full school year away, we are beginning
the process now in order to allow attrition to account for personnel
reductions (estimated to be 20 plus).
At the moment, we continue to be able to meet the educational needs
of our students. We do believe, however, that we are on the brink
of experiencing a downward spiral in the quality of our educational
programs and services due to a lack of needed resources. Our greatest
fear is that our next round of reductions will have a direct and
negative impact on our students, their families, and our overall
community.
Critics of school funding suggest that schools should become more
efficient and make better use of the resources they have. Efficiency
is certainly important; however, we must not let our zeal for efficiency
undercut the quality of programming to such a level that the needs
of children in Texas are not met. If public schools in Texas are
to continue to meet the challenges of ever-increasing state standards
and the diverse needs of a growing and changing student population,
public school funding must be a priority for our legislature and
for all citizens of Texas.
Like all fine things, quality education comes at a cost. |
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