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WB schools cutting spending, but teacher shuffle works out
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · July 23, 2015


The state had an education budget, but Gov. Terry Branstad vetoed $55 million in one-time funding. Now West Branch Community Schools must line up an array of cuts — and assume just the 1.25 percent more in allowable growth — to move forward.


The school started its fiscal year three weeks ago.

Branstad is not expected to call for a special legislative session and the legislators do not appear to want to call one on their own to try to pass a new education budget. So, Superintendent Kevin Hatfield outlined a series of cuts to the Board of Education at its July meeting, including trimming the small fourth-grade class from three classrooms to “two-and-a-half,” he said.

The legislature passed an education funding bill in May with a 1.25-percent increase in per-pupil spending, which meant about $52,000 to West Branch, or about $80 more per pupil. That worked out to $6,439 in total state funding per pupil.

That same bill included about $55 million in “one-time” money — money not from upcoming tax revenues, but rather money from its savings accounts. That one-time money amounted to about $89,000 for West Branch. However, Branstad said he opposed using one-time money and vetoed the bill.

Hatfield said both the per-pupil increase and the one-time money — about $141,000 in additional funding — would be just a bit short of covering West Branch’s current budget plus an estimated 3-percent inflation — assuming West Branch did everything the same as last year.

When West Branch issued its proposed budget in April, the school district estimated the state would provide about $4.26 million, about 28.7 percent, of its $14.84 million budget.

State figures — before the veto and minus the $89,000 one-time money — showed West Branch would have seen a decrease of $115,000 from the previous year once every revenue source was included, he said.

Now that appears to be what West Branch will get for 2015-16, he said.

With new property tax rollbacks taking affect, local property taxes would have increased only about $700 over last year, Hatfield said.

Here are some of West Branch’s bigger plans for cutting expenses:

• Reduce fourth grade from three classrooms to two. Blake Schultice and Laura Heithoff will teach the two classes, which will include an estimated 24 to 26 children per class, up from 17 to 18 last year. To help alleviate that increase in the teacher-pupil ratio, the school will hire a half-time reading and math teacher who will use the third classroom. Hatfield notes that special education associates will continue to serve any fourth-grade pupils who require additional help.

• Eliminate the 5-year-old prekindergarten class.

• No new major curriculum adoptions. Hatfield said the school wanted to update math and science books this year so they would more closely align with its standards-based education and integrate more technology. He predicts some small purchases, like replacing worn textbooks, but nothing major. The school also planned to update social studies books in a couple years, but that may have to be pushed back while waiting for math and science.

• Replace staff who retire or resign, but shuffle duties around to match up with some changes to course offerings. For example, Hatfield said, the Family and Consumer Science class will not return next year, but health and physical education classes will absorb that class’ most important teaching standards. With that change, the high school can bring back the accounting and business class that was cut a couple of years ago.

• Reducing early bird physical education by one section and meeting three times a week instead of daily.

• Reduce industrial technology by one period and send other students to the new Regional Center’s industrial tech class.

• Direct the custodial and maintenance staff to “reduce inventory” of supplies and equipment and hold off on significant purchases.

• Minimize overtime.

Hatfield said there are other smaller cuts planned, and that he and the school principals will meet in August to consider others.

The superintendent and Business Manager Angie Klinkkammer told the school board last week that the full education bill, had it not been vetoed, would have meant West Branch’s property tax rate would rise from $14.10 to $14.17.

West Branch knew funding would be down to some degree this year because enrollment fell by 12 pupils, and state funding is based on enrollment.

However, West Branch this year also starts the first year of a three-year Teacher Leadership and Compensation grant worth $250,000. That money must be spent only on specific teacher-mentoring activities outlined by the grant, but it allows the school to hire three mentors.

Two of the mentors were hired out of West Branch’s own teaching staff: Kelsey Strope, who taught middle school math, and Erin McFarland, who taught kindergarten.

Hatfield said it just so happens that the two teachers whose classrooms are being eliminated by the cuts are qualified to teach the two classes Strope and McFarland will leave behind. Pre-K teacher Barb Wargo will step in to teach kindergarten, and fourth-grade teacher Dina Hull will move to the middle school to teach math. The superintendent said Hull had even made it known earlier in the school year that she would be interested in teaching middle school math.

“This was not part of any strategy,” he said. “It just worked out.”

The third mentor hired to work at the high school is Jessica Taylor, who is returning to West Branch after leaving a year or two before.

Hatfield said the school may seem “lucky.”

“We’ve had a stable budget; we’ve run a tight ship,” he said.

Hatfield said he has mixed feelings about the legislature and governor over the education budget, but said he hopes enrollment and state funding go up next year.

“I’m not sure we can weather it again,” he said of enrollment declines and budget cuts, saying another round of cuts may be even more obvious in the classroom. “This October will be a really big time for us with planning and budgeting.”