Higley schools budget protects most teachers

 We at the Higley Unified School District would like to provide our community with updated information regarding our budget and staffing for the upcoming school year. We approached the budget savings using two strategies: budget reduction and staffing reorganization. We were pleased with the input we received from our stakeholders through surveys, parent forums, individual school site meetings, the teacher association, and administrative meetings. Difficult decisions were made to keep our district financially stable.

Higley board OKs $52.4 million budget

Although the state budget was not complete, we have based our budget on projected funding, including budgeting for the additional $2 million dollars in excess utilities expenses, which previously had been provided in funding outside the budget limit.

Another issue Higley faced in the budgeting process was the state decrease in revenue generated from sales tax and state trust land sales. These dollars are issued to schools under Proposition 301 to support teacher compensation and instructional programs, which Higley places in teachers' contracts. We had to build this funding gap into our maintenance and operating budget, which resulted in an additional estimated expense of $875,000. Our attempt was to keep teachers as close as possible to the same pay they received in the fiscal year 2008-09 school year. Below is an explanation of the outcome of our budgetary planning.

Protecting teachers

Although it has been extremely challenging to reduce our forecasted budget for 2009-10, we are proud that our focus on protecting classroom instruction to ensure a continued focus on student academic achievement will enable us to maintain class size and teachers, as well as teacher salaries. We are also happy with the process we followed that included gathering input from our stakeholders including our parent advisory council and staff. Through this process - and as a community - we agreed that the goal had to be to maintain classroom size, teaching positions and teacher salaries.

Achieving our goal of protecting classroom instruction does mean that significant cuts had to be made throughout the district. Those cuts, based on projected state budget reductions, required us to cut our budget by approximately $5 million.

These reductions mean that we will have fewer classroom aides next year and that we have had to cut support jobs across the district in business and finance, accounting, human resources, clerical, custodial, maintenance, transportation, etc. However, we were able to maintain all but 5 1/2 teaching positions for next year.

Reducing pay for extra work

Further budget recommendations from all survey groups included supplemental pay reductions. This resulted in restructuring the substitute process and eliminating traditional funding for extra duties such as department chairs or grade-level chairs. Our surveys revealed support for teacher volunteers for many of our extra duties such as clubs, school events and activities.

In addition, we anticipate a reduction in our athletics budget by approximately $700,000, or 60 percent. This budget cut will result in the elimination of 14 assistant coach salary stipends, transportation, supplies, and equipment.

These are difficult decisions, and we hate to put a hand out to the community, but if the dollars are not going to be available through our state budget, we need to do everything we can to find the money to save our extracurricular programs. This is important because we believe that a balanced education through academics, athletics, arts, and other extracurricular programs is the best education for our students. That said, we must maintain the focus on academics and the classroom first.

Staff reorganization

We previously had a reduction in force involving 45 teachers. The opening of Centennial Elementary School allowed us an opportunity to contract back most of these teachers. Under reorganization, teachers transfer to openings created by retirements, resignations or student enrollment movements.

In addition, we determined that we needed to add staff members to offer academic and support programs that serve the needs of all of our students. These new and enhanced programs will not only better serve our students, they will also drive student enrollment, which drives funding and revenue. We are adding alternative education to our high school offering and a K-8 self-contained gifted program. Prior to this, many students were leaving our district for alternative education and self-contained gifted programs in other districts.

For the past year, we have had a half-time position dedicated to the elementary and middle school athletic programs, while full-time assistant principal/athletic directors supported the high schools. As we look to the future with significant cuts in the athletic budget and the vision to offer the highest quality athletic programs at all levels, we determined that the existing staffing model was not sufficient; therefore, we have hired a district-wide athletic director, eliminating the half-time position.

I encourage community members to call me or schedule time to meet together if they have questions, concerns or ideas regarding these challenging topics. My door is always open, and I value your input and ideas as we work together to continue to move Higley forward and achieve all excelling schools.

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Denise Birdwell is superintendent of the Higley Unified School District.