Agenda - 04-27-2010 - Attachment 1

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Continuation of Services • In order to continue the current level of services to students, our local budget is projected to increase by $1,907,950. This includes the expenses for the Hospital School reimbursement ($254,250) and the salaries for nurses for whom we are reimbursed by the County ($419,685). It also includes a $302,534 for Limited English Proficient (LEP) student programs. A grant supporting immigrant students expired last year that we had used to fund these programs. This year we used carry-over funds but they must be spent by the end of this school year. Utility costs are projected to increase by 5% or $153,009. The other large increases in expenditures are for the increased cost of the employer's share of health insurance ($294,193) and for the state retirement employer match ($367,850). We have no control over the costs of these state-run programs. Other additional continuation budget items include the following: • $25,000 for additional revenue sharing with charter schools as a result of a recent State Supreme Court decision; • $67,429 to reflect the additional cost to employ three full-time, certified athletic trainers at our comprehensive high schools. Two of these trainers are already in place at Carrboro High School and at East Chapel Hill High School. • $24,000 to make up for the loss of grant revenues to support school-based mental health services. This budget analysis does not include any provision for salary or step increases. Ultimately, this decision is made at the state level. The cost to the district if the state were to grant step • increases to teachers is approximately $400,000. This budget also makes no provision for salary increases for classified staff or non-building based administrators. State Reductions At this time, the only reductions in the second year of the state biennium budget of which we are certain is a 35% increase in the discretionary reduction, which will be $666,183 for our school district and the elimination of funding for textbooks. A discretionary reduction requires local school districts to reduce state appropriations in the areas where they see fit to do so. Last year, the discretionary reduction of approximately $1.9 million came from classroom teacher positions. That reduction will remain in place. We do not plan to replace the funds lost by the elimination of state funding for textbooks. We have some carryover funding that we will use on an as-needed basis. There will be no district-wide adoption. After considering a number of different possibilities for a discretionary reduction and conferring with principals and other administrators, the Superintendent, reluctantly, recommended that we reduce the allocation of teacher assistants to third grade classes from one full-time position to a half-time position. This would eliminate approximately 20 teacher assistant positions across our 10 elementary schools. This allocation would result in K-2 teachers having full-time assistants and teachers in grades 3-5 having half-time positions. We staff K-3 classrooms at 21 students per teacher and 4-5 classes at 26 students per teacher. Schools could request waivers to allocate their teacher assistant positions differently. We anticipate that much of the reduction in positions can be achieved through attrition at each • 4