USD 367 Faces Enrollement Concerns
By Jeff Gulley
Superintendent Gary French told the USD 367 Board of Education Wednesday night that a decline in enrollment numbers will lead to trimming the budget.
“It was one of the worst times probably in Osawatomie financial history between the last board meeting and Sept. 20,” French said. “We lost 15 students and the majority of them were on free or reduced lunches. Every weighted factor went down. We went thinking we were going to republish the budget to get an additional $40,000 and at the worst, republish for $20,000 to now we are going to have to trim $16,000.”
French said it was not a disaster this year but he has concerns about funding for next year.
Two years ago the district’s full-time equivalency, which takes into account the student head count along with weighted factors like students on free and reduced lunch, was 1,125. Last year that number dropped to 1,110 and this year’s final number was 1,089.
French said there was no clear-cut answer as to why numbers are declining but did offer an interesting piece of research.
“Most school districts are down,” he said. “Part of it we’re doing to ourselves. Fifteen percent of our general fund goes to at-risk which is a little scary when you talk about doing away possibly with weighted factors.”
French also talked about the district employees who have had kids graduate. Over the past eight years, 90 students of district employees have graduated. French said that currently district employees make up 9.3 percent of the student population or 7.77 students per class. Adding back those 90 students would have made the number 11.25 students per class.
Student numbers are not official until audited which French said would not happen for some time.
In other news the board:
— Talked about an efficiency study to break down what the district spends its money on by category. French said all the data should be in for the past two years for the board to evaluate.
— Approved supplemental contracts for winter sports. All the positions were unchanged from last year except a girls’ assistant basketball coach and the assistant wrestling coach. Those positions will be announced at a later meeting.
Short URL: http://osawatominews.com/?p=1504
Posted by admin
on Oct 19 2011. Filed under News and Updates.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry