Libby Schools may be forced to cut staff
The numbers keep coming down.
Based on enrollment counts on Jan. 6, the number of students taking classes in Libby Public Schools is down to 1,217 – a reduction of nearly 300 students from the January count in 2004. The high school alone has 101 fewer students when compared to six years ago.
As one might guess, fewer students translates into less money and fewer teachers. The Libby School Board could be facing a situation where district employees could be let go.
“Principals met with each of their staffs prior to tonight’s meeting – not to scare but how it will affect the schools,” Maki said on Monday. “Our employees need to know that’s a possibility. This year, it might be a little more pronounced.”
Kirby said it’s possible that the district will lose teachers naturally after the school year through retirements and relocations. The issue appears more serious in the high school.
“It’s been coming … everybody else has been making reductions along the way and now it’s getting to the high school,” school board member Lee Disney said.
Maki went over the numbers with board members.
“We’re probably going to have a 1-percent increase in state revenue less the loss of about 70 students and end up with that situation – $120,000 in the hole,” said Maki, who followed up with a brief explanation of how he arrived at that figure, which he called conservative.
In addition, the cost of personnel with wages, salaries and steps-lanes figured in comes to $337,000. Maki said that if the district did not have all of its current staff, that figure would be somewhat less.
Those two factors add up to an estimated shortfall on the 2010-11 budget of $457,000.
Maki said the numbers are preliminary but also worked in deferred maintenance and curriculum costs that could take $107,000 off the original figure to bring the shortfall down to $350,000. Maki believes that move would ultimately have a minimal effect on students because loss of staff is minimized.
“Very obviously, that’s four to seven people,” Maki said about the $350,000 shortfall and possible impact. “And it doesn’t have to be all teachers necessarily.”
One school board member brought up that the 1-percent increase in state revenue could possibly be eliminated if the legislature goes into special session to deal with over-budget issues. However, Maki said K-12 money can’t be touched in that particular category.
Maki also brought up a budget situation with one-time stimulus funds – which currently covers the salaries of four teachers. What remains of that money can pay for just three teachers in 2010-11 – the shortfall coming in at approximately $45,000.
Maki feels it is important to communicate with staff to let them know that a Reduction in Force – or RIF – could be on the horizon.
“People retire, people move, we’ve been through that before. Very seldom have we had to RIF people,” Maki said. “It becomes unpleasant with people who have a lot of seniority because of their endorsement area. … That’s an unfortuante thing but it does happen. I’m not saying it’s going to happen but again, it could.”
The board later rejected a retirement insurance incentive on a 6-1 vote.
“I think it would be extremely difficult, from my perspective, to have a retirement incentive and yet have to RIF people who have been here a long time,” Maki said.
Libby Public Schools Enrollment
Following are enrollment figures as of Jan. 6:
Preschool 15
Kindergarten 69
Grade 1 90
Grade 2 84
Grade 3 90
Plmr/Asa Wd. 348
Grade 4 80
Grade 5 92
Grade 6 74
Grade 7 83
Grade 8 78
Middle Sch. 407
Grade 9 99
Grade 10 126
Grade 11 112
Grade 12 125
High School 462
TOTAL 1217