School districts across Arizona have begun to make adjustments after the legislature cut $119 million in school spending in an effort to stave off a $1.6-billion budget shortfall in the current fiscal year.
Districts that serve the Northwest already have crunched some numbers to figure out how the diminished state support will affect their bottom lines and the quality of education they deliver.
“From both the state and federal government, education is in grave danger,” Amphitheater School District Governing Board Member Kent Barrabee said.
District officials estimate the legislature’s cuts will cost Amphitheater schools nearly $2 million — money the district already has budgeted for this year.
About $1.6 million likely would come out of the district’s general fund, with another $353,000 coming from capital expenses. Amphitheater’s fiscal 2009 operating budget is $96 million.
District officials last week were unsure where the cuts would apply or if any school programs would be reduced or eliminated.
“The best thing we’re doing is trying to prepare for the worst,” Barrabee said.
In the Marana Unified School District, the Northwest’s other public school district, officials estimate the changes will eliminate $1.6 million from the district’s fiscal 2009 budget of $76 million (that includes operating and capital expenses).
Marana officials say the bulk of the proposed cuts — about $1.3 million — will impact the district’s maintenance and operations expenses, things like salaries, benefits and instructional supplies.
That represents about a 2-percent decrease in spending.
As much as 85 percent of district spending goes toward salaries and benefits, Marana schools finance director Dan Contorno said.
The remaining $281,000 would come from soft capital spending — or money used for textbooks, computers, furniture and other one-time expenses.
The reduction represents about a 10-percent decline in budgeted spending for that category.
District officials, however, say they anticipate maintaining a balanced budget despite the cuts.
The unexpected drop in fuel costs last year has saved the district an estimated $300,000, while an increase in the number of special-needs students has brought in more than $600,000 in additional revenue.
Marana officials also have initiated a hiring freeze, eliminated out-of-state travel for recruitment and have cut $62,000 in utility expenses.
But those measures only cover the current budget year.
State legislators in Phoenix already have begun to discuss ways to head off a projected $3 billion-shortfall in fiscal 2010, which begins July 1.
Republican lawmakers have proposed slashing nearly $900 million in education spending in fiscal 2010.
If that happens, Marana school officials estimate the state could reduce funding to the district by as much as $12.5 million.
A group of Democratic Party legislators last Thursday held a public forum at Amphitheater High School to discuss the budget situation and the Republican-majority’s plans for further cuts next year.
More than 350 people attended the assembly, many of whom sounded off on the proposed spending cuts to the state park system, health care, schools and the Republican lawmakers in charge of the legislature.
One speaker who drew enthusiastic cheers from the crowd was Amphitheater School District lawyer Todd Jaeger, who railed against spending cuts.
Jaeger criticized the Republican-led legislature for not attending the meeting and not holding similar ones themselves.
“I am a Republican myself — that’s a dangerous admission here,” Jaeger said, then added, “After all, there’s conservative, and then there’s just plain ignorant.”
But not everyone sees the cuts to school funding in the same dire fashion.
“The overall picture on school funding is not as grave as the school lobby would have you think,” said Matthew Ladner, a researcher in education policy and funding at the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute.
Ladner disputes the widely accepted figures distributed by the National Education Association that ranks Arizona dead last in spending — about $5,300 per pupil.
Studies he and others at Goldwater have conducted put the figure closer to $9,000 per child in K-12 when local taxes and federal grants are accounted for, Ladner said.
But even with the $119 million the state legislature has cut from schools, the total makes up 2.9 percent of the department of education’s $4.1-billion budget.
“People equate inputs with outputs,” Ladner said.
Probably what schools need more than money are meaningful reforms, he added.
Ladner said Arizona schools employee a high number of non-teaching employees.
Evaluating the need for some of those positions could help individual districts save money, he said.
“There’s a lot of things that I would want to cut before teachers,” he said. “Really what you’re talking about is human resources management.”
