Balancing Budgets & Priorities
Tough times are making for tough decisions. May is budget month for KELOLAND schools - time for educators to tighten the belt and decide what they can afford and what kids will have to live without. School trips, tutors and supplies are often on the hit list - but will your kids suffer? DeeAnn Tiede has tonight's Eye on KELOLAND. Triangles, trapezoids, octagons and circles. These Robert Frost first graders are getting their minds "square" about shapes. And when kids are puzzled - PTA president and mother of two Mary Kenny is right there to help. "I really like being with the kids," she says. Kenny volunteers three days a week in 6 year old Bridget and 8 year old Terry's classrooms. "I could go all the way from dishing out ice cream or helping with field trips," Kenny says. She has a first hand look at the cost of educating her kids and yours. She says it's money well spent. Next year, the state funding formula, which is based on enrollment, will allow 3-777 dollars for each child educated in South Dakota. But to keep class size small and offer extras, Sioux Falls will spend an extra 172 dollars per student. That additional spending has the district strapped. Roger Risty, president of the Sioux Falls school board says, "This year's probably going to be the worst because over the last few years, we have narrowed the budget down. We've parred it down to where we thought it was bare bones already. Now we need to go even deeper." That means sacrifice. Risty says, "You're hurting kids. There's no doubt about it." Kevin Kaufman, the district's business manager says, "You can kind of see the crunch coming down the road so it is frustrating and its been frustrating for the last three or four years." The school board is forced to make tough decisions at intense meetings like this one aimed at trimming the athletic budget. "Is there a reason that of all the cuts all the way down through the packets that there are no cuts at the high school level?" board member Sam Amato asks. Each group that goes before the board puts together four proposals or packets, scaling programs back to 95 percent and working up from there. Kaufman says, "We make them go back and say what they would take out of their programs if they were forced to do so." The board funds programs at the highest levels it can afford. "Are those sports that are all inclusive - not cut? Correct," board member Joy Smolnisky asks. This is not the year for expansion. Amato asks again, "Can we see what kind of program cuts we would face if we trimmed an additional couple hundreds thousand out of this budget?" Some taxpayers may be wondering how Sioux Falls can afford to remodel and upgrade existing schools while educational programs are being cut. The money comes from two different funds. State law doesn't allow schools to transfer money from one to another. Risty says, "In the perfect world, you're gonna have enough to fund all the programs you ever want and have money left over and that's not happening anymore." Instead Risty says quality and quantity are suffering. "The focus recently has been let's increase the educational quality, let's raise the standard and yet we're to the point where we're lowering the bar because we don't have the money to do it," he says. And that's a sad song that will ultimately affect students. With Eye on KELOLAND, I'm DeeAnn Tiede. The budget process starts in January. The final spending schedule is officially approved in July.