The Blaine County School District's proposed budget for next school year is more than $18 million higher than this year's.
The proposed budget for fiscal 2011, which starts July 1, totals about $92.8 million. The 2010 fiscal year budget was about $74.2 million.
District Business Manager Mike Chatterton said the increase is mainly attributable to funds the district will borrow from a 10-year, $59.8 million plant facilities levy approved by Blaine County voters in October.
The levy authorizes the district to collect $5.98 million per year in property taxes, starting in July. On top of that the district will borrow about $13.5 million to get projects rolling this summer.
The district board of trustees will take public comment on the proposed budget at its annual budget hearing on Tuesday, June 8. The board will then consider whether to approve the budget.
The largest expense for fiscal 2011 is staffing, which accounts for $41 million of the proposed budget, with $29.5 million for salaries and $11.5 million for benefits.
Capital outlay, which includes new construction made possible through the plant facilities levy, totals about $26.1 million.
Advance spending on future levy funds was approved in May in Blaine County 5th District Court through a legally required process referred to as "judicial confirmation." Chatterton has estimated that borrowing on levy funds rather than waiting until the money is actually collected will save the district about $4.7 million by taking advantage of federal economic stimulus programs and lower-than-usual construction costs and interest rates.
Chatterton said levy funds will be used in fiscal 2011 for geothermal resource development and replacement or retrofits of heating, ventilating and cooling systems at Bellevue Elementary School, Carey School and the Wood River High School complex in Hailey, which includes the Community Campus. Also, levy funds will be used in the coming school year to build a lunchroom at Bellevue Elementary and to build a maintenance and food-storage facility on district-owned property on Aviation Drive in Hailey.
Chatterton said the district stands to lose about $1.1 million in state funding for fiscal 2011 but will not face staffing cuts, as are being considered at some other school districts in Idaho. Instead, the district plans to increase staff, including the hiring of two new dual-language program teachers, one at Wood River High School and the other at Hemingway Elementary School in Ketchum. Staff increases also include hiring of an international baccalaureate coordinator and a half-time foreign language teacher at Wood River High School.
Some parents of students in the dual-language program, called Dual Immersion, have complained to the Idaho Mountain Express that the program is going to be cut back, but Chatterton said the hiring of two new Dual Immersion teachers shows that the district remains committed to the program.
Chatterton said state funding cuts will not have a significant impact on the district because of an $8 million reserve it is carrying into the fiscal 2011 budget.
"We're doing subtle changes in the district to tighten up," Chatterton said. "We're just trying to prepare ourselves for what the district knows is coming in the future."
For example, some district schools have increased fees or enacted new ones. Carey School has added a $5 art fee for the next school year.
At Wood River Middle School in Hailey, the yearbook price to students will increase from $20 to $25 and student activity cards will jump from $8 to $12 for sixth-graders and from $15 to $18 for seventh- and eighth-graders.
Wood River High School will charge $5 for supplies and materials for most of its science classes and has raised the cost of student parking permits from $15 to $20.
"As the district tightens up, there's going to have to be more fees," Chatterton said. "I think you're going to see more of that in the future."
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
The Blaine County School District proposed budget for the 2010-11 school year is more than $18 million larger than this year’s budget of $74.2 million.
Express graphic by Coly McCauley
