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Issue 82
School District Moving Forward to Resolve Budget Crisis
We are pleased to announce some very good news amid all of the
discouraging financial woes. This year the school district put into
place a program to increase student daily attendance as a method to
offset the declining enrollment and bring in more state revenue. Each
day a student attends school the district receives approximately $40.
This program has already produced dramatic results with increases of
1-2% in all 4 schools. If we can keep up this pattern, it will result in
a gain of revenue next year of nearly $260,000. We urge parents and
students to continue to make attendance a high priority and continue
this new trend
In December the HUSD School Board created a group of sub-committees to
work on resolving the numerous issues facing the school district. Each
committee has begun working on their respective assignments and is
making real progress. A couple of committees are reviewed here – more
will follow in the next column.
The Procurement Committee has been considering several local revenue
methods– a parcel tax, a sales tax and a transfer tax. The committee
heard an information report on the different methods that can be used by
a school district. Only a parcel tax is available to the schools
directly - other taxes require either city or county cooperation. The
committee unanimously agreed to recommend hiring a consultant to conduct
a voter survey in preparation for a tax election. Last week the
committee interviewed potential consultants and selected the winner at
last week’s School Board meeting. The committee met with that survey
company on Friday Feb. 11 to discuss the pre-election voter survey
details. A voter survey will include 400 households with a 15 minute
survey and will take place in late February.
The Configuration Cost Committee has completed its assignment. After
reviewing the recently submitted projected enrollment studies, the
committee concluded that K-5 will not exceed 927 students, grade 6, 163
students and 7-8, 402 students in the foreseeable future.
They reviewed several research studies on grade configuration, with
emphasis on where sixth grade fits best. The consensus was that the best
configuration was K-5 at the elementary level (without determining the
configuration within K-5) and 6-8 at the middle school. The group
recognizes that this is a change and must be presented and communicated
properly to parents with concrete plans to answer community concerns.
The group is recommending utilizing two elementary sites anticipating
that the district can sell Foss Creek at an acceptable price. This would
put elementary school capacity at 860 (based on utilizing two sites, HES
and Fitch Mountain) with maximum student projections at 927. The current
middle school capacity is at 486 and maximum student projections are at
565. It was recommended that two elementary classrooms and six middle
school classrooms were required in addition to the replacement of seven
portables at the middle school.
The School Board has scheduled a study session for Feb. 23 which will be
open to the public and will be an opportunity to hear more about the
current state of our financial crisis and to have some input. Time and
place to be announced later.
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