School district faces upward of $1.2M deficit
CHEBOYGAN -- The Cheboygan Area School Board will hold a special meeting Saturday to discuss ideas developed to help cut the district's 2009-2010 school year budget deficit.
Next year the school district anticipates a deficit between $900,000 and $1.2M.
"There's a range there because a lot of it has to do with enrollment and what kind of funding we will have," said Dan Bauer, superintendent of CAS. "We also have certain fixed expenditures we have no control over like retirement and healthcare."
Cheboygan Area Schools expect to lose 82 students next year which means a loss of another $490,633. But, no matter how it all adds up, CAS is taking next year's budget deficit head on, and they're not doing it alone.
"They say it takes a community to raise a kid, well it takes a community to solve this problem too," Bauer said.
From bus drivers to teachers, support staff to everyone else in between, school employees along with members of the community are working together to develop ways to help tackle the deficit.
Ideas already developed range from big, such as consolidating buildings and eliminating staff positions, to the very small including initiating energy saving measures and adding minutes to the school day.
Bauer says getting the entire district involved in the process is important for the end result.
"When you have that kind of challenge ahead of you, a million dollars, and 85-percent of your budget is personnel, then 85-percent of it really should come from personnel," Bauer said.
Realistically, Bauer says anything is a possibility including cuts and classroom consolidating. He says the process is meant to be pro-active and positive, looking at ideas that will have the least impact on students.
"It's been very positive, I've had a lot of positive feedback that this approach has never been done before in Cheboygan and they're appreciative that they have a voice in the process," Bauer said.
The school's budget is due in June.
The public is welcome to join administrators and the school board Saturday as they discuss the ideas and specific topics of measures that will have to be taken to balance the budget.
That meeting is scheduled for Saturday morning at 8 a.m. at the Cheboygan Board of Education building on Division Street.
