UPDATED- April 11, 2014

The ICCSD laid out a plan Tuesday, April 8 that will allow the district to cut the necessary 3.6 million dollars from its budget. The plan includes cutting programs that include fourth grade orchestra, seventh grade football, seventh grade foreign languages and phasing out the German language program.

City High students have started a petition to “save Iowa City German.” According to the district’s Budget Adjustment Summary students will have the option of taking world language classes through the University of Iowa. Some music and language teachers have encouraged students to send letters to the district against the removal of certain programs.

There will be no teacher lay offs as a result of the budget cut this year. Some vacant positions will not be filled and other teachers and administrations will have different responsibilities in the district. For example City and West High will each have only one Dean of Students next fall.

For more information download the district’s FY 2015 Budget Blueprint and Budget Adjustment Summary.

ICCSD Make Tough Budget Choices- April 7, 2014

Eighty percent of the Iowa City Community School District’s budget goes to employing people. Of the money spent on district employees, 80 percent is allocated to teachers and associates working with students. So in order for the district to cut 3.6 million dollars from it’s budget, teacher positions must be cut.

Budget cuts have proven to be necessary in order for the ICCSD to align it’s revenue with expenditures. Increased spending in recent years has been necessary due to the addition of 1,000 students to the district in the last three years. It has also been possible thanks to stimulus dollars that came into the district in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

The district currently employs approximately 957 teachers. The district plans to cut 10 elementary teacher positions, 20 from secondary schools, and five central administration positions. These cuts will either come from not filling vacant teacher positions left by retiring or resigning teachers or in layoffs.

“There have been extensive discussions about how we can adjust pupil teacher ratios to make classes more efficient and those types of things within our teacher ranks,” ICCSD’s Chief Financial Officer, Craig Hansel, said. “That’s where we spend the most money.”

Fewer teachers could lead to larger classes sizes and a school’s inability to offer classes previously available. The district has set a guideline of 24 to 32 students per class for schools to try to meet as they plan for the 2014-’15 school year.

At City High, adjustments will have to made to compensate for a smaller staffing allocation. This will be achieved by not filling positions of retiring teachers if the given department can still be successful with one less teacher. However, some departments will need to be replenished. The Spanish department will have two teachers retire at the end of this year and part or all of those positions will have to be refilled.

“Everyone that is here right now provides an important, valuable service to this high school,” Principal, John Bacon said. “Knowing that we will have a reduction presents challenges.”

Challenges that include larger class sizes, but Bacon stresses that class size increases will not be drastic and will remain within the district’s guidelines as frequently as possible.

Other challenges that will present themselves include maintaining a large breadth of course offerings and ensuring that as many people as possible continue to have a job. These things are also high on City High administration’s list of things to protect.

“We are going to have to be very creative in some cases to determine how we can use our staff to pick up the slack for areas that we have had to reduce.” Bacon said.

This week school administrators will share information with the school board and each other to finalize plans. Bacon is confident that those impacted will be notified by the end of the month.

“We all try to follow some general principles,” Bacon said. “We are very sensitive to people’s jobs to the extent that we can and we want to make sure there is a job for everybody even if there is some moving around or if the role they are doing is a little bit different.”

The district will be looking at all parts of the budget in order to make the necessary cuts. Hansel says that “all aspects of school operations” are being considered. Other parts of the budget that could be reduced include supplies, transportation, custodial maintenance and utilities.

“We dumped everything on the table and said we are going to consider everything on its own merits,” Hansel said.

Budget cuts this year are also paving the way for this growing district to remain solvent as it adds students and subsequently schools, teachers, and other expenses. Hansel has created a five year funding model that takes into consideration the dates new schools will open and the added state funding that is predicted due to growth in the student population.

“If we are careful and continue to tighten our belts and maintain a reasonable approach to our expenditures we can fit in these new costs as they come on,” Hansel said. “But we have to be very planful about it.”