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Cortez schools plan to cut pay, benefits

Board makes tough decisions to trim $240,000 from budget

The Montezuma-Cortez School District has announced that it would slash more than $240,000 in instructional position salary and benefits next year, resulting in the cancellation of multiple teacher contracts.

In open session Tuesday, board member Brian Demby delivered the news by reading an emergency declaration revealing a “reduction in staff” would be required to ease fund balance declines. Superintendent Alex Carter also was directed to present his recommendations for canceling employee contracts within 20 days.

The district has cut funding before. Less art education and fewer school counselors were on the chopping block in previous years, and Carter warned officials Tuesday that additional cutbacks to “strategically eliminate failed programs” could continue next year in order to meet budget demands.

“Some of the things we’ve cut were good, like cleaning out your garage,” Carter said, “but some of them weren’t good for kids.

“To have everybody reduce their budget by 3 percent is just not smart,” he said. “It’s really a weak response, and we just can’t do that anymore.”

Carter emphasized future funding reductions would target a couple of ineffective student programs, but indicated they’d neither be “brutal” nor “bloody.”

Board members get their first peek at next year’s total preliminary budget April 29.

Carter also presented board members with his own preliminary budget assessment for fiscal year 2014-15, which included more than $1 million total in proposed spending increases.

Carter’s report revealed “bottom line” added expenses would be required to continue funding the district’s tradition of step increases for employee wages and the free full-day kindergarten program at a cost of $236,000 and $140,000, respectively.

Board members also were reminded the Children’s Kiva Montessori Charter School would divert $200,000 from next year’s district budget.

Other considerations raised by Carter included an extra $15,000 needed for workman’s compensation coverage and continued skyrocketing utilities costs. Half of next year’s $50,000 utility bills are proposed to pay for recent Cortez Sanitation District rate hikes alone.

“Utilities have gone through the roof,” Carter said.

Currently, the district’s total revenue projection for 2014-15 is $18.3 million, about $2 million short because of reduced funding by the state, Carter said.

Officials are hopeful state legislators add to revenue projections by approving both the Student Success Act and School Finance Act. If both pass as written, the Colorado Department of Education estimates the district would receive $6,731 in per-student funding next year, about a $400 per-student increase over current levels, or $915,000 in total additional revenues.

“We’re nowhere near where we should be,” Carter said. “Even with $1 million more from the state, we’re still not making improvements for our students.”

Although the current legislative session ends May 7, Carter told board members they can’t rely on the state for increased funding.

“We have to make plans for the worst-case scenario since that seems to be what happens a good deal of the time,” Carter wrote in his budget assessment.



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