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Milan Area Schools stands to lose more than $540,000 and go into deficit spending if the state takes back the promised increase in per-pupil funding.
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What was considered a crisis in school funding four years ago has become a catastrophe, say school administrators from across the county who are waiting on word from Lansing about the extent of another round of midyear cuts that could be as much as $224 per pupil.
The proration, which is necessary in light of a $377 million deficit in the state's School Aid Fund, is expected to have devastating consequences on public education at all grade levels. School leaders in Milan, Saline, Manchester, Chelsea, Ypsilanti and Dexter say that in the last four years they have made every effort to keep cuts from affecting performance in the classroom, but now there is little left to cut except staff and programs.
"I can't take anything more out of this building's budget," said John McGuire, the retiring principal at Klager Elementary School in Manchester, a district that is facing a $500,000 deficit even before the prospect of midyear cuts. "There's nothing left to take out. We've been cut to the bone."
The "bone," administrators say, is the people and programs necessary to provide effective educational services to children. Unless the Legislature makes structural changes in how public education is funded, cuts are now at the classroom door, they say.
"It's no longer a matter of extras," McGuire said. "We're talking direct services."
Administrators paint a bleak picture of how midyear cuts will affect their districts next year.
Layoffs and larger class sizes are inevitable. Slashes to elective programs such as music and art are probable. Trimming athletic offerings is anticipated. Reduced transportation services, scaled back professional development, and delays in the purchase of new textbooks and up-to-date technology is likely.
"We're down to making real difficult cuts," said Milan Area Schools Superintendent Dennis McComb, whose district would lose more than $540,000 and go into deficit spending if the state takes back the full $224 per pupil. "We're running out of choices."
In the Ypsilanti district, which has cut 20 percent of its $54 million budget for the past two years and closed schools to do it, Superintendent James Hawkins said keeping cuts out of the classroom is unavoidable.
"We can't go a third year without cutting programs," he said. "We've been as innovative and creative as we can, but there are no more alternatives."
Principals and superintendents say the cuts will impact services of fundamental importance at every grade level.
Increased class sizes
The number of students in elementary classrooms, already believed to be too high in some districts, is likely to balloon as a result of staff reductions. Klager Elementary School in Manchester recently decreased its number of second-grade classes from four to three, rocketing the number of second-graders in a class up to 27.
Class sizes from kindergarten through first grade at Klager currently hover in the low 20s, but that could go up to as high as 27 or 28 students next year, said Manchester Superintendent David Oegema.
"We're looking at cutting teachers," he said bluntly. "The question becomes, educationally how big do you want classes to be."
At some point, educators say, increased class sizes negatively impact student performance and classroom management.
Roger Moore, principal at Bates Elementary School in Dexter, would like to see class sizes around 18, but his school's class sizes average 22 to 24 students, which remains within an acceptable range for now, he said.
"We've been able to function OK," he said, "but smaller class sizes are very desirable."
Staff cuts in Dexter are likely next year, said Superintendent Evelynn Shirk, who will have to confront a deficit of about $750,000 if the full pro-ration comes down, and that has Moore concerned about the possible loss of some of his building's para-educators, whom he describes as instrumental to his young students' overall well-being.
"There is a safety aspect we can't afford to lose," Moore said. "It takes a lot of adults to keep kids safe."
In Milan, where the teacher contract does not place a limit on class size without additional compensation, administrators are working to keep elementary class sizes down, but some classes in the high school approach 36 students.
It's increased class sizes, in fact, that administrators believe will prove the tipping point for parents, who on the whole, they say, have failed to fully realize the extent of their district's desperation. Cuts over the past several years have drawn the attention of small groups of parents with special interests, administrators said, but the pending cuts will be felt district-wide.
"For the past five years, we've been able to make cuts that have not been painful enough to get people up in arms," McComb said. "We're in real pain now."
Added Oegema, "Parents have not put pressure on the state. The pressure has been put on the local school boards, who simply do not have the funds to change it."
Elevated class sizes likely will spur parents to voice their displeasure with Lansing legislators.
"It's going to be an increase in class size that is going to really get parents' attention," said Andrew Ingall, principal at Beach Middle School in Chelsea.
Educating the 'whole child'
In addition to increased class sizes, districts must now seriously consider impacting students' overall education by cutting programs from athletics to art.
In Saline, eight teams in basketball, football and volleyball were recently cut at the middle school to save an estimated $25,000. Chelsea cut girls freshman soccer this year.
In addition, seven Saline teachers and six para-educators were laid off in January. Gifted-and-talented programs were cut last year for Chelsea kindergarteners through sixth-graders.
Also, Manchester students likely could see fewer electives at the middle school next year and there is talk of reducing the counseling staff at an age where students are struggling with issues surrounding self-esteem and self-control. An at-risk program for students was cut earlier this year.
Music, art and physical education are in jeopardy at the elementary school level, while supplies for science labs and art rooms could become lean.
"To do science right, you have to be in the lab two, three times a week," said Chelsea High School Principal Ron Mead. "Supplying labs and art rooms has a cost."
For the most part, Chelsea has been able to maintain a six-year cycle for textbooks, but keeping updated texts could become a casualty of budget cuts.
Mead said Chelsea has resisted initiating a pay-to-participate program, but he doesn't know how much longer the district can hold out, and he dreads the day he walks into the football stadium and sees advertising posted everywhere.
High schools likely will have to sacrifice keeping classrooms equipped with up-to-date technology, which Dexter High School Principal Kit Moran says can be costly.
"At the high school level, we have to be as technologically advanced as possible to keep students' interest and to prepare them for a world with rapidly evolving technology," Moran said.
The wide range of cuts will effectively gut schools of the programs parents value most.
"We're here to educate the whole child," said Chelsea Area Schools Superintendent David Killips, who faces having to come up with about $650,000 if the state takes back the full $224 per pupil. "But we're getting into having a generic, sterile school system."
Addressing the
deepening problem
While some school districts have healthier fund balances than others, all are ailing after years of being tapped to offset state cuts. Milan has a fund balance of about only 2 percent of its general fund, and would not be able to absorb the full weight of the pro-ration this time around. Saline's fund balance just tips 5 percent. The recommended fund balance level is 15 percent, which Manchester approaches with 14 percent, but Oegema said he expects to pull the midyear cuts from the fund balance, slicing it almost in half. Dexter stands at 10 percent.
Reliance on a district's fund balance is failing, administrators said, and they must find other revenue sources. So they are considering trying to pass sinking funds, a countywide enhancement millage, exploring privatization, and increasing fund-raising efforts from school foundations.
The Washtenaw Intermediate School District has formed a finance study committee to look into proposing an enhancement millage that would be levied countywide and distributed on a per-pupil basis to districts.
But WISD Superintendent William Miller says local revenue alternatives will be insufficient to avoid future cuts.
"Even if we went to all the local and regional revenue options we have, it won't be enough," Miller said.
Miller said the ISD is working with legislators to mitigate the pro-ration and to address changing the structure of school funding. Legislators at this point, Miller said, have no plan.
Districts such as Chelsea, which passed a sinking fund and a bond issue in 2004, say they are "capital funds rich, but operations poor." Money raised through sinking funds and bond issues only can be used for facilities and not operational costs such as salaries.
Ypsilanti's Hawkins said his district could save about $500,000 by privatizing transportation.
In Dexter, Shirk said she planned to present to the school board the advantages of a recreation millage and a bond issue.
Saline is exploring putting a sinking fund before voters in May.
"We have fewer and fewer options," said Saline Superintendent Beverley Geltner.
No light at the
end of the tunnel
In his five years as Chelsea's superintendent, every year Killips has kept thinking "this year will be the one when it bottoms out." He is no longer that optimistic.
"I don't know we've seen the bottom yet," he said.
Moran, who is marking his 28th year in education, said he expects to hear more and more stories of districts' budget cuts in the next 12 months.
"The difficult question is what can we live without?" he said.
Oegema said he believes budget cuts will only get worse next year unless the state changes the structure underlying school financing.
Districts have dealt with cuts or no increase in their foundation allowance for four of the last six years. A survey conducted by Michigan School Business Officials, the results of which were released last week, found that 120 of the state's school districts (20 percent) would go into deficit by the end of the 2006-07 school year.
More districts are expected to fall into the deficit crevasse if the bleeding in state funding is not stanched.
"The possibility of schools going into receivership is creeping closer and closer to our own neighborhoods," Shirk said.
Added Hawkins, "We've been heading in the wrong direction for some time. We saw five years ago the end was coming and the end is now here. We are on the brink of collapsing."
Oegema said it's finally getting to the point where legislators are realizing there are no more one-time fixes.
"They are backed into a corner and will have to either raise taxes or change how we're funded," he said.
Geltner has used districtwide e-mails to urge parents and residents to contact their legislative leaders. She personally wrote a letter to Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
"As I attempt to balance this year's budget and prepare a three-year budget … it occurs to me that I must either (1.) err on the side of caution and seek extremely deep and permanent cuts in our costs, or (2.) be optimistic and set my school system up for the possibility of future budget crises or failure," she wrote the governor. "There is an urgent need for systemic changes that require bold leadership and political courage at the state level."
Administrators all agree that the solution to their funding "catastrophe" lies in Lansing.
"The Legislature put us in this position," McComb said. "They need to get us out."
Brian Cox is a reporter for Heritage Newspapers. He can be reached at 429-7380 or bcox@heritage.com.
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