School Budget Questions

Here are a few questions on the 2009/10 School budget, which were recently sent to the Board of Education for the Public Hearing on 25 June. (A prompt response has been received from Board Chair, Ann Horner (see below) Thank you, Ann.

• Why are teacher and education salaries decreasing and maintenance increasing? "maintenance went up because of additional staff required for thelarger High School." Are we perhaps spending too much on buildings, cosmetics and frills rather than what is needed - in the classrooms?
• pg 7 Fund 10 line 2600-180 General Fund Operation and Maintenance Salary increased by $80K "additional personnel to maintain the old high school"
• pg 19 Fund 32 line 2600-100 Capital Projects Operation and Maintenance Salary increase of $90K "staffing adjustments made to offset the 1.5 million dollar cut from legislature"
• pg 5 Fund 10 line 1000-100 total General fund Instruction - salary decrease $600K "staffing adjustments made to offset the 1.5 million dollar cut fromlegislatured."***(1000-161 Aides -$130K) "we would love to hire all of the aides back but in lean years we aremaking adjustments to live within the budget." *** 2100-142 General fund Guidance Personnel decrease $70K "We have taken the Utah Behavior Initiative person back as we aretrained and the program can be run without 1/2 time person. We have beenable to take 1/2 time counselor from the 5th 6th school with theconfiguration because of elementary status we don't fund as muchcounselor time to do scheduling an other responsibilities that a 7thgrade would need. If the services are not required we don't have to fundthe personnel."
• pg 6 Fund 10 line 2300-115 Supervisors directors decrease $100K "We are not replacing Vickie Todd as a Director at this time. We are looking for other Directors and Superintendent to assume theresponsibilities of this position. We feel in these economic times we are all being asked to do a little more. We also reassigned a specialist from the district office to the classroom. We reassigned her work to another specialist in the district."
• pg 6 line 2400 152 Principals increase $63K

What are "Media Personnel - certificated" at nearly $300K in annual salary (for several years)? "The Media Personnel Certificated is the Librarians in the schools, they have their Media Certification. We pay them at that level not at an aide salary. With the Certification they can be counted as time with aneducator and the teachers in the Elementary schools gain additional preptime without having to loose instructional time with the students.(approx 30 minutes a week.) So that figure is their salaries."

• Why have general fund revenues increased by 50+% Total revenues by 65+% while enrollment is up only 10%?
• Why/how did 2008 budget increase by $4million from original to actual? Was it the increase in taxes from higher assessments?? "I believe you are right that the increase in the 2008 budget was fromthe assesments being higher than what we had anticipated."
• Is the Wasatch school philosophy to spend ALL monies received whether "needed" (in the budget) or not? "We are not in the business of trying to keep spending more. We did not go to truth intaxation to raise more money last year nor this year. We have in fact been putting additional money that we did not budget into the fund balance. We are trying to cut ongoing cost and personnel as we are receiving decreases from legislative funding. We are planning on holding our cost down and using the fund balance to maintain programs and the educational integrity of the district in these difficult times."
• What was the cost of trading the old Junior High and the Rocky Mountain school grades? Where is it found in the budget?

Are "building" funds (pg 20 line 720) of $66.8 million the cost of the New High School? "We have released the numbers on the high school and they are on the website, (possibly here?) the figure we have put out does include the land, architects,Layton and all fees associated with the high school."

• This number is consistent with previous reports for the $59.5 bonded school
• Will the $3.7 M in 2009/10 budget bring the cost to $70.5M?
• Are land cost, furnishings, equipment, etc. entirely included within these figures?

Supt. Shoemaker reported that $2.8 M of "interest on bond proceeds" were used in payment of High School construction:

• The budget (2008, 2009) shows $2.1 in interest on Capital Projects funds and $1.1M interest in General Fund
• Was general fund interest used for construction?

Wasn't there a roughly equivalent amount of interest accrued (but not paid?) "I know we have not changed the schedule of the bond or the payments in any way." on that bond? If so, haven't we merely created more debt and postponed payments to future years and spent MORE money than what the project was sold to the voters?

"I do appreciate thoughtful questions and hope that they will make me a betterboard member. I will look into your questions and try to answer any thatI have not at this time. "

"As I have sat in the meetings it is clear to me that we need to be sensitive and conservative in what we take from the public. I have tried to be frugal and to spend thetaxpayers money responsibly."