Last month, TCAPS leaders approved a $90 million budget for the upcoming school year and projected a $4-5 million deficit. Now they're focusing on an even larger problem for the following year.
TRAVERSE CITY -- The TCAPS district recently approved a $90 million budget for the upcoming school year...and they're predicting a $4-5 million deficit. But school leaders already prepared that financial outlook.
"We were looking at needing to reduce our operations by $3 million and what we've elected to do was to use a million of our fund balance and then to engage our community in how else we would reduce that two million, and we've done that so that's in place, so we are set for this next year," says TCAPS superintendent Jim Feil.
The district is now focusing on the 2010-2011 school year and an even greater deficit of $10-13 million.
"It's going to require dramatic change potentially in public education in this state at the end of next year...People are recognizing that we need to do more to produce results and at the same time, transform ourselves into a model that's more sustainable," says Feil.
"Does that include cuts that need to be made?" asks 7&4 News.
"Well, we have a three point budget plan in place right now. The first one is revenue....partnerships and it's the reality if we have to reduce how we are going to reduce," says Feil.
Feil says the school board's main focus right now is avoiding any cuts if at all possible and instead trying to re-evaluate their financial strategies.
"I think we have to be careful of continuing the cuts because we've worked hard to stay away from cuts that impact students. There's always allowance were you can find some things that you can save money on," says Feil.
He goes on to say, "We've already reduced our operations by $10 million over the last six or seven years and now we're looking at another $10 million a shorter amount of time."
