Controlling Costs While Maintaining Programs, Services

Message from the Board of Education
Randolph Henderson, President
Jill Scott, Vice President

Over the last year we have endeavored to control costs, while maintaining programs and services to students. These efforts include earlier budget planning, exploring shared services with other districts, and reducing administrative costs. Despite such efforts, costs continue to increase at a rate which places programs and services to children in a precarious state due to forces beyond our control. These include unfunded state and federal mandates, ever-increasing health insurance costs, rising state pension costs, and decreasing merger operating incentive aid.

We are seeking to stabilize the budget through careful advanced planning; extended budget dialogue, including opportunities for community input; and budget allocations focused on district goals. The Board of Education believes that open and ongoing communication, combined with long-range financial planning, is the key to maintaining student programs and services in a fiscally responsible manner. We have extended the budget process by:

• Seeking community input via a series of “Budget Listening Sessions.”
• Instituting an administrative “Budget Task Force,” which reports to the Board of Education each month beginning in December.
• Using the district web site (www.clake.org) to provide more information about the budget to the community.
• Sharing the services of a cafeteria manager with a neighboring school district.
• Applying for a grant to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a centralized business office to serve several school districts.
• Joining other school districts for ongoing discussions about shared services and regional collaboration.

As a merged school district, we have been able to develop and deliver outstanding learning opportunities to students. It is our mission to preserve these opportunities for future generations. We continue to explore options for collaboration with other districts and for creative funding sources to offset the burden to the local taxpayer. As always, we continue to invite community input and ideas to guide our decision-making.