NLR schools face budget pinch

Bond payments due, must cut $13.5M in 3 years, board told

Looking to save $13.5 million over three years, the North Little Rock School District is considering a number of options, among them reducing employee contract days, not paying bonuses, personnel reductions and discretionary cuts.

During a Tuesday evening work session, district administrators presented the School Board with a draft plan of how the district could cut the money over three years.

"Our goal was $13.5 million over the next three years. The majority of that is next year because we have $8.3 million in bonds that are due and the payments [are] due," Superintendent Kelly Rodgers said, "and whether we save money or not, they are going to take it back from us so we've got to make those bond payments next year, so that's a critical year."

According to Rodgers, the district has saved approximately $2.4 million through cuts this year.

The district is facing not only costs associated with the building program but also the loss of state desegregation aid -- $7.6 million a year -- after the 2017-18 school year.

"The desegregation funds, which are part of this, and our capital improvement plan, which is part of it ... those funds equal almost $16 million, and that's what we had to save originally," Rodgers said. "You reduce it by $2.4 million and we're down to right at $13.5 million, with $8.3 million due next year. I think we're going to be there next year."

No action was taken on the draft plan during Tuesday's meeting, which Rodgers cautioned was a work in progress.

The draft plan includes a savings of approximately $1.6 million in 2015-16 by a reduction in workforce.

"This is the amount the district will save from the combining of campuses, going one middle school, one high school and nine elementary schools," Chief Financial Officer Denise Drennan told the board. "This is the natural [reduction in force] that occurs."

The draft plan also includes a savings of $176,435 by eliminating elementary Spanish program instructor positions in 2015-16 and saving $144,926 that year by cutting five bus driver positions.

The district is also considering reducing the length of employee contract days. The draft plan institutes savings of $208,000 a year in 2016-17 and 2017-18 by reducing all 240- to 261-day contracts by five days starting in 2016-17. Another $492,000 could be saved in 2016-17 by reducing all 180- to 239-day contracts by two days.

"These two cuts right here would hit every single employee, except for the 178-day employees that are here every day the kids are here," Drennan said.

As an alternative to reducing employee contract days, the district is considering doing away with yearly $1,025 step increases to eligible teachers for two years and "stalling pay" for employees districtwide.

The district estimates the savings would be approximately $1.8 million over the two years by stalling pay for every district employee versus saving $908,000 by cutting days for everyone.

Stalling pay, or delaying pay raises, would also mean employees would not lose pay or days on their contracts, or have their final average salary calculation for retirement affected.

"Rather than losing two days of pay or 10 days of pay, depending on which contract you are on, you're just stalled at that level [of pay]," Drennan said. "It keeps you at that dollar amount you were earning in that previous year."

Rodgers told the School Board even he would be part of the stall in pay.

"We have a year for this," Drennan said of choosing between the reduction in days or the stall in pay. "We're not talking about doing this in the fall or August. We're talking about doing this a year from August."

The district savings plan also estimates $1.4 million in savings by not paying bonuses in 2015-16.

The district savings plan goes so far as to try saving 2 cents per square foot districtwide in utility costs, including an eight-week summer plan of four-day weeks with 10-hour days where buildings are shut down Fridays through Sundays.

The savings plan presented to the board Tuesday still leaves the district short roughly $333,000.

"We'll continue to try to find additional savings," Rodgers said. "We've gotten very close."

Metro on 04/22/2015

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