APS faces deep mid-year cuts
Crystal NelsonArticle Photos
The Alpena Public Schools Finance Committee will be recommending approximately $554,500 in mid-year cuts at the district's board of education meeting Monday night. The cuts are being proposed to offset the state's reductions in per-pupil funding, rather than dip further into the districts fund balance.
The board will consider eliminating 13 non-teaching positions including eight elementary library instructional assistants, a $20,000 cut to athletics and putting a freeze on funds for both long range technology and career and technical education capital outlay projects. Safety patrol and Science Olympiad are also on the chopping block and reductions to DARE and school supplies are recommended as well.
The finance committee decided it would spare preschool from this round of cuts and not recommend it as a cut at this time. Committee member Mike Barnett said he is opposed to eliminating the preschool since the district decided to extend it.
"My priority as a board member is in the classrooms," he said.
Barnett told those present, although it's the most expensive item listed for the cuts in terms of dollars and cents, it is probably the most valuable item on there for the kids.
Committee member Maureen Mead also believed preschool should stay through the end of the year.
The committee decided to get more information on the contract agreement the high school has with Plaza Pool. If the district stopped being a user of the pool, it could save $28,400 from the elimination of a lifeguard and utility payments. However the district is contracted to provide those services until June and since it's not clear whether it will be released from that contract, a decision is pending.
The finance committee also looked over 47 potential cuts for the 2010-11 school year but did not believe a recommendation was necessary at the time. In addition to the normal reduction of teaching positions the district would make from declining enrollment and attrition, the board would be looking to close one or two elementary schools, move the sixth grade to Thunder Bay Junior High and make significant cuts in athletics for the next school year.
Superintendent Brent Holcomb told committee members APS is not the only district making cuts right now.
"Every school district in the state is having the same discussion," he said.
He said it's not because that administration in school district's throughout the state "suddenly got stupid" and don't know how to run a school, it's because the revenue is not there. The district is trying to make it through the 2011-12 school year before the fund balance will be gone and the district will begin to deficit spend, according to Holcomb.
"We're trying to be the last one off the financial cliff in the state of Michigan," he said. "I think where we'll wind up is - if we can make it last that long - we'll be in the middle of the pack; probably half of the school districts will have gone before us."
Monday's 5:30 p.m. school board meeting will be relocated to the TBJH cafetorium because attendance from the community is expected to be higher.
Further information on APS' budget crisis can be found on the tab titled "budget crisis info" of the district's Web site www.alpenaschools.com.
Crystal Nelson can be reached via e-mail at cnelson@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5693.
