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Durango teachers get pay raises

District’s 2015-16 budget will have $727,000 deficit
Students participate in the Invention Convention in 2012. The Durango School District 9-R Board of Education warned Thursday of a financial pinch that may have them spending time in the next few months looking at programs for potential cuts.

The big question on the Durango School District 9-R Board of Education’s agenda Thursday: Will teachers and classified staff receive a pay increase for the 2015-2016 school year?

The answer was yes, by a 5-to-2 vote as the board approved the budget for the year. Greg Spradling and Bree Stahnke were the two nays. The board is required to approve its budget by June 30.

Superintendent Dan Snowberger had originally presented a budget without the increase and a surplus of $23,000. The pay increase, ranging from 1 to 3 percent depending on position, will cost about $750,000. Total deficit for the year, about $727,000, will be pulled from the district’s reserves.

“And that’s not a one-time expense,” said Julie Popp, spokeswoman for the district. “That’s an ongoing expense.”

The argument made by the Durango Education Association, which represents the teachers’ union, and the Durango Support Services Association, which represents classified staff, was that providing the step increase for the coming school year would allow staff to prepare for a salary freeze the following year.

District 9-R currently has $5.83 million in reserves, just under 15 percent of annual operating expenses. State law requires 10 percent, but as a matter of policy, the board has set 15 percent as a goal. The district had shown a trend toward lowering deficit spending, going from $2.2 million in 2013-2014 to $380,000 in 2014-2015. Approval of the raise will take the reserves down to 13.44 percent of operating expenses.

The district has been in a cycle of cost-cutting since the recession started, and some of it can be blamed on dueling amendments to the Colorado Constitution, Popp said.

“When the recession started, fewer dollars were flowing into the state, so fewer dollars were flowing into education,” she said. “So people realized funding for education was suffering and passed Amendment 23 to infuse money into school districts.”

Amendment 23 provides for school funding to increase by the rate of inflation plus the rate of growth plus 1 percent. The problem is that the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which passed in 1992, allows funding increases only for inflation plus growth.

“Taxpayers are getting back $500 million that really should go to education and prisons and other high needs, but probably only the Legislature can resolve the conflict,” Popp said. “It’s called the negative factor, and it’s only going to grow incrementally.”

District 9-R estimates the TABOR versus Amendment 23 discrepancy has cost it $4.8 million. A mill-levy override district voters passed in 2010 has loosened the squeeze somewhat.

The deficit spending works for the coming school year, but the district needs to make some hard decisions soon, board member Mick Souder said.

“We have to tell the community early that we have to be considering eliminating programs they value,” he said. “We should start with the list of things we looked at last month but didn’t feel comfortable pulling the trigger. People need to understand we have more district than we can afford.”

The board also eliminated an additional teacher work day Aug. 24. A lack of clarity in contract language between 183 work days in one paragraph, and the board having the right to set the number of work days in another led to the decision.

“If we vote against changing it back to 183 days, I don’t know how we can vote for the ratification of the agreement,” Spradling said. “The teachers voted on 183 days.”

The board is planning its retreat for late July. Souder recommended that it start analyzing potential programs to terminate in its August meeting so the community will have time to weigh in.

abutler@durangoherald.com

Jan 17, 2016
Durango school district asks community for budget-cut input


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