Barrington School Board Approves $2 Million in Final Cuts for 2011-2012 School Year

Since January, the Barrington School Board has had the grim task of slashing personnel and programs to achieve a balanced budget for the 2011-2012 school year. On Tuesday night, the board unanimously approved $2,005,135 in cuts to achieve that very task.

The budget reductions will eliminate the equivalent of 12.9 full time positions, which will ultimately affect 26 employees who will either be given pink slips or have their work hours reduced for the next school year.

Among the personnel eliminations are teachers, administrators and support staff.  At least two positions; that of an associate principal at Barrington High School who is leaving the district and his administrative assistant who is retiring, will remain unfilled.

Other positions that will be no longer include an elementary school teaching assistant and a library assistant at the high school.

Also abolished were 44.5 staff stipends for duties in addition to teaching in the classroom, such as supervision of after school programs and activities.

Class sizes in the elementary and middle schools were not affected as much as first anticipated; due to decreasing enrollment, the elementary school average class size will actually go down from 21.9 students to 21.4. The amount of students per class in the middle school will also see a decline from 23.77 to 23.6 children.

“It would have been much harder if our enrollment were increasing, but 150 less children are projected to enroll next year,” said Dr. Tom Leonard, superintendant.

At Barrington High School though, there will be an increase from 24.85 to 26.13 students per classroom. 

“One of the things that give me the most unease is the increasing size of classes in the high school,” said Brian Battle, school board president. “They are getting a little high.”

School Board member Penny Kazmier agreed.

“I felt in past years we were pruning branches, I don’t want to start cutting off limbs, said Kazmier.

“The cuts will moderately affect class sizes but will preserve quality instruction and maintain much of the Barrington 220 workforce,” said Leonard.

Examples of co-curricular programs that will no longer be available to middle students include pom pon, cheerleading, student council and the Station Variety Show.  

Over the past three years, the school board has reduced the budget by $6 million, which has allowed them to balance the budget 13 years in a row.

Barrington 220 administration worked to identify any potential savings or revenue increases to avert additional budget reductions, said Leonard.

Savings were identified for utilities, where the administration was able to negotiate better prices on natural gas and electricity.

Also included in the tightening of the purse strings were reductions in overtime costs, extra duty payments and maintenance supplies.

Other sources of revenue implemented by administration are the increase in rental fees for Barrington 220 building use, raising the summer school equity fees and paying invoices with debit cards.  

Battle stated reductions were made based on the best knowledge available to the board pertaining to state and federal funding, but cautioned that the school district is dealing with an uncertain economy and the potential for decreases in public school funding.

The door was left open for additional budget cutting in the future.

The budget category reductions, correlating percentages of the entire budget and percentage of the implemented cuts are as follows:

• Instructional and co-curricular reductions of $787,272. Represents 70.65 percent of overall budget and 47.2 percent of reduction total.
• Administrative reductions of $174,424.  Represents 5.15 percent of overall budget and 10.5 percent of reduction total.
•  Operational reductions of $704,438. Represents 24.2 percent of overall budget and 42.3 percent of reduction total.                                     

The roughly $2 million in cuts were made to the estimated $121 million budget for the 2011-2012 school year.

To view the entire list of cuts, visit www.barrington220.org and click on 2011-2012 Budget Cuts Update.