Post Falls schools consider cuts

The Post Falls School District is at the end of its rope, financially speaking.

If the Legislature doesn’t increase school funding to defray escalating operating costs, the district may need to cut programs, Superintendent Jerry Keane said.

“It’s very serious,” Keane said. “I feel very uneasy that we have to spend down our fund balance to do our day-to-day job with students.”

In five years, the district has whittled its reserves from $1 million to a projected $500,000 by the end of this year.

“You can only continue to absorb these cost increases for so long,” district business manager Sid Armstrong said. “If this scenario continues, pretty soon you’re going to be in the hole.”

The increasing cost of gasoline is partly to blame, Armstrong said. Not only must the district pay more to run school buses, but it costs more to operate trucks that deliver food and curriculum materials, he said.

The district already has cut some costs. It started an employee wellness program in hopes of reducing health insurance expenses. It cut travel funds for field trips and extracurricular activities. It left some maintenance and custodial positions dark. And it is using heating and cooling systems more efficiently.

The next cost-cutting area the district will look at is academic programs. Officials hope that more money from the state will make that unnecessary. If the money doesn’t come, the district might have to increase the teacher-student ratio, reduce electives or delay curriculum reviews, Keane said.

Another potential consequence of dwindling reserves is a lower credit rating. This could make it more expensive for the district to borrow money, as it hopes to do if voters approve a proposed school bond in May, primarily for a new elementary school.

Post Falls isn’t alone in its budgetary pinch. Board Chairwoman Donagene Turnbow said she heard similar – and worse – tales at the Idaho School Board Association meeting in Boise last month.

“Everybody’s feeling the same constraints,” said Turnbow, the association’s vice president.

Part of the challenge is meeting the federal and state expectations for student performance under the No Child Left Behind Act without funding help to do so, Turnbow said.

North Idaho legislators are aware of the situation and have assured the district that several bills are in the works that could help, Armstrong said.

“We’re just going to watch it like everyone else,” he added. “We’ll keep our fingers crossed.”