ISD166 to vote on reducing superintendent position

If the ISD166 school board follows through on preliminary discussions, they could vote next month to reduce the superintendent’s  position to nearly half-time.

The board met this week in a work session and revisited proposals to reduce spending by restructuring the District administration. This could dramatically affect Superintendent Beth Schwarz.

Schwarz: “ISD166, as you know began discussions last year about the tenuous budget situation, and we started to talk about reductions last year – how do we address this pro-actively rather than being re-active, so we can protect our programming for students as much as possible. Now, after the work session it looks like there will be a motion made at the October board meeting to reduce the superintendent’s contract from 90% down to 75% for the 2012-13 year, and then down to 60% for the 13-14 year.”

Schwarz said the decision has not yet been voted on, but the board’s movement is in that direction. She said the rationale is that if the board is going to have to make significant cuts in the future, they need to start with the highest paid salary and move forward from there.

Terry Collins is an ISD 166 school board member. He does not speak for the board, but has some hard observations too make in a cash-strapped educational environment.

Collins: “To say that the superintendency at 60% is a level at which less work is going to be done is only the tip of the iceberg. If the state continues to fund education as it now funds education, and if the population of the county and its school-age children continues as it is on track to continue from the superintendent’s projections, there will be a lot less money to spend. And just as in the past when there have been too few students to fill a science curriculum, we’ve laid off science teachers for a portion of their job. When there’s too few dollars to do administration, we lay off administration for a portion of its job. So reducing the superintendency to 60% is not something anybody wants, it’s what the numbers tellus we have to do.”

In effect a 60 percent superintendent would concentrate the job in two areas, according to Schwarz.

Schwarz: “You would limit the superintendent’s ability to set vision for the District. That would then move down to other building administrators. Typically a 60% superintendent is focused strictly on budgetary and legal matters.”

Schwarz said currently 60 percent of her job is taken up with budgetary matters, contract negotiations, legal issues such as grievances and complaints.

One important feature of the position is helping to set a vision, create goals and objectives for the future of the District. That part of the job would need to be picked up elsewhere in the system.

Schwarz: “Could be the school board. Could be the principal. Could be a site-based management team. The board would have to decide who in fact would do that.”

Collins does not characterize his job or those of his fellow board members as managerial.

Collins: “I think the school board’s job is not to manage day-to-day the business of the District. The school board’s job is not to get in the way of the people hired to do the work of the District. They’re there to provide oversight. I think the superintendent will have to look at the work to be done and make choices about what gets done by the superintendent, what gets delegated and what just doesn’t get done.”

ISD166 is in a difficult financial position as are most school districts. Schwarz said the District will get a shot in the arm through a program called “Small Schools Revenue” which will bring in another $130,000 starting in 2012-13.

Schwarz: “It does look like our fund balance is going to come in around $770,000. Of course, the full audit is not done. It also depends on whether or not he has included what is called an ‘assigned fund’ in there. If that is included, then I think we’ll be more around the $900,000 fund balance. If we go with the lower number and if we do not make any further reductions in administration – as you know we did make some last year – and assuming our fund balance comes in around that $770 mark, we stayed the course for right now and did not make the reductions in administration, our fund balance would be approximately $700,000 after 2013-14 year.”

The District has asked Rep. David Dill to pursue reinstatement of  $100,000 in sparsity aid it formerly received when Grand Portage Elementary was a part of the system. The letter should be on his desk early next week.