School district expects more funding cuts

The Newton school board met in a brief session Tuesday morning to pay the bills, as the district’s new fiscal year starts today.

As part of end-of-the-year transfers, the district transferred an additional $437,493 into its contingency fund.

The district usually transfers more into its capital outlay fund at the end of the year, but assistant superintendent of business Gary Jantz said district officials thought the district would be better served with the money in contingency, considering the $1.2 million state funding shortfall this year.

The district also was able to cut funds from some budgets for the 2008-09 school year in anticipation of the funding shortfall for the coming school year.

This included less overtime.

The district also transferred less to the special education funds because of state cuts for the next school year — $4.72 million, which is about $98,800 less than they had budgeted.

Jantz said school districts across the state are expecting an announcement of another round of cuts as soon as next week.

The district was able to pay all of its bills, but it has yet to receive its funding from the state for the next school year.

That likely will be delayed until sometime in July.

The state likely will have to cut an additional $100 million from its budgets as tax revenues have fallen short of projections, Jantz said.

Superintendent John Morton said he was concerned the state was not making plans for how to deal with budget shortfalls once stimulus money has run out.

“There is $218 per student that, when the stimulus period is up, would be cut out. That would be an additional reduction,” Morton said. “We need to be talking to our people in Topeka about what happens in 2011 and 2012 to shore up education budgets.”

Barbara Bunting, board member, also asked Jantz about how the recent increase in water rates will affect the school district.

Jantz said the district had budgeted some increase based on the planned phased-in water hikes. However, the new rate structure will likely cost the district $10,000 to $15,000 more per year.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the hiring of Scott Jantzi as a special education teacher at South Breeze Elementary School.