Retirement incentive for teachers tops list of cost cutting suggestion at board forum

Nearly 30 different cost containment and cutting ideas and/or suggestions were made by the 70 to 80 people at Monday?s public forum hosted at the Grambau Center by members of the Rogers City Area Schools Board of Education. The input gathering session will be used to help the board decide what to do with a projected deficit of $450,000 for the next school year. With a declining student population, there is less revenue coming in from the per student foundation grant. The district has 243 students less this year than it did in 1997-98, when 857 students were enrolled. This year the figure stands at 614. Interim superintendent Paul Mancine said the budget of $5 million is 90 percent personnel costs.

PRESQUE ISLE COUNTY MSU Extension director Dave Glenn facilitated the session for the board. About 40 to 45 percent of the attendees were concerned parents or students, another 40 to 45 percent were district employees and their spouses, while the rest were local residents without students in the district. ?The focus of the meeting was to generate a brainstorming list of ideas to address the $450,000 that needs to be cut from this budget,? said Glenn. ?There could be three days of discussion around each and every one. The idea is to get something up on the board for consideration. There will be more discussion following this. It could get way out of hand if we allow discussion on every point. That?s why we need to stay focused.?

Some people were disappointed that there was not time allotted for discussion. After spending the first hour writing down cost containment ideas and suggestions, Glenn asked those in the audience to come to the front of the room and place stickers by the suggestion that they think should be considered first by the board. Each colored sticker represented a certain amount of points. Some thought that prioritizing issues without having enough information was not fair and collect by misleading to the public. The suggestions ranged from cutting sports and bussing; sharing classes with other districts; and eliminating janitorial services.

THE ITEM that received the most points by far was retirement incentive for teachers with 245 points. The next closest was closing down the Grambau Center with 51 points. Other top vote-getters included cutting administrative costs, a health insurance buyout, as well as a three-part category for bussing, which suggested the board consider limiting, charging or cutting bussing altogether. All three together amounted to 47 points. The transportation budget for 2005-06 is $233,000, said board member Lee Gapczynski. That figure includes salaries, gas, and other supplies. After the meeting, Mancine said the jury is still out on if the early retirement incentive will save the district money.

?They (staff) have been pushing that for a long time,? said Mancine. ?I went down to Lansing last week because I wanted to talk to the experts at the Michigan School Business Officials to get their take on it. I?m going to cost this out and I?m going to present it to the board and show them. It?s going to be in the open session. I?m going to say, here it is. Here are some scenarios. Here?s our best guess, now you have to evaluate, is this short-term infusion of funds worth it, long term.? He also said the district has to be careful if it does head in the direction of cutting sports and bussing, or increasing class sizes.

?YOU DON?T want to shoot yourself in the foot,? Mancine said. ?These are things the board is going to have to deal with in regard to schools of choice.? Mancine, who called Monday?s brainstorming session step seven in a 10-step process, is hoping to present the Phase II cost containment plan to the board as early as March 1. The Phase I cut occurred late last year. ?Dave did a good job of keeping people on task. He did elect, and he talked to me about this, about challenging people on what to cut,? said Mancine. Junior high teacher Ariane Romel, who believes there were some good issues discussed faces the

prospect of being laid off from the district for the fourth time. ?It is very tough. I love my job, I love my colleagues,? she said. ?I have to focus on trying to support a family, too, but I know what the system has to do. Some of them could have been explained a little better, so that the public would know the exact costs, like retirement incentives, or closing the Grambau Center.?

HER BIGGEST concern with shutting down the Grambau Center was the possibility of a charter school moving in and taking students away from the district. ?In Alpena they lost students,? Romel said. ?We don?t want to lose students.?

Board member Allan Smolinski said people will have the opportunity to address topics at the next regular board meeting. The entire list of cost cutting ideas follows: sell land; temperature regulation; retirement incentive; close Grambau Center; pay to play for sports/sports at no cost to the district; insurance buyout incentive; shared classes with private schools to generate income; cut the services of the librarian; cut sports; maintain current classes; share classes; shared services; share bus maintenance; share snow removal; cut administrative costs; class sizes; cut school lunches; tap into the fund equity; cut paid holidays; cut janitorial services; trim support staff; increase grant writing; limit, charge, or cut bussing.