May, 10, 2006

Jersey County schools

The long and short of the shortfall

There are many enviable jobs out there. Taster at Ben & Jerry’s. Quality control for the Four Seasons. Food critic for the New York Times. Jersey County School Board member? Not so much.

Next week, the board will take up the very serious issue of closing the projected $2.8 million shortfall in the education fund. That’s the fund that pays for all the teachers, programs and related expenses; other funds, which cover transportation, operations and paying for the new schools, are not experiencing shortfalls. The board is proposing a series of cutbacks that will save some $280,000 next year, far short of what’s needed but as proactive as possible. The gap will be covered by the working cash fund.

In looking at the situation, many things are clear. First, we don’t envy the board having to make these very tough decisions. Second, the board has, in fact, been making these very tough decisions for years now. As board president Sherry Droste said, this didn’t happen overnight. Officials saw this coming years ago (the district does budget and revenue projections at least five years in advance) and took steps. New teachers weren’t hired, supplies were cut, budgets were cut back, and classes grew bigger. The district made cuts how and where they could and still the shortfall grew.

Why? It isn’t because of fiscal mismanagement -- no, the district has acted very responsibly in handling the education fund. It isn’t because of the two new schools --whatever you think of the new schools, funding for their construction is a completely separate issue from funding the education fund. And it isn’t because the district offers too many academic or extracurricular programs.

On the one hand, deficits and shortfalls are very simple: if your expenditures exceed your revenue you will, at the very least, have a shortfall. If you are running a household, you could stop using your credit card, you could borrow books and movies from the library instead of buying or renting them, you could stop eating out so often. But if you are running a school district, you can’t just fire teachers, cut programs and close schools (which wouldn’t have an impact on the education fund anyway because the operation of the school buildings comes out of a separate fund). When a big chunk of your revenue is completely out of your control, when you don’t know how much money will actually come in, what do you do?

We hate to see these cuts and we fear it will only get worse. You can only cut so much before you start to make a very serious, and lasting, impact on the quality of education. The answer is to increase revenue, somehow, someway. Taxes may have to be raised and certainly the state of Illinois and the feds have to kick in more, but local taxpayers may have to as well.

This is a very serious situation and we should stay focused on the facts and not on suppositions and misinformation. And let’s stay focused on what has been done and what must be done to maintain an acceptable, if not exceptional, level of academic excellence in Jersey County.