Seventh District school board member Susan Graham, right, listens to Jill Casada, WCS's health services director.

Updated 5 p.m. Friday
'Growth' positions, textbooks among cuts
By SUSAN LEATHERS
Brentwood Home Page
The Williamson County Schools board of education meeting began at 9:23 p.m. Thursday night. It ended at 11:40 p.m., with a proposed 2011-2012 school budget trimmed by $2.3 million.

Cut from the now-$236,977,304 budget were a number of “growth” positions, including five of the 10 high school teacher positions requested to lower student-teacher ratios; 10 new teaching assistant positions at the elementary level; a half-time assistant principal and a tech coach. Some late-night finagling allowed the board to save two new school nurse positions. Also included to make the numbers work is a change in bus stop locations and an idling policy change for school buses.

The K-12 school district has 31,190 students at 40 school sites: eight high schools, eight middle schools, 23 elementary schools, and one K- 8 school. Summit High School and Clovercroft Elementary will open in August.

The cuts came at the request of the Budget Committee of the Williamson County Commission at its meeting with school officials earlier this week. School staff will present the new budget to them on Monday.

The budget committee is expected to authorize a request to the county commission for a property tax increase to meet the school district’s remaining budget deficit and other budget needs.

Cuts will be felt, Looney says
The special called meeting, held after the school board’s regularly scheduled work session, wasn’t a happy one.

Superintendent Dr. Mike Looney opened his presentation by explaining the budget committee’s request. Central office staff spent hours in the intervening days between the two meetings to determine where to make the cuts, he said. “It has been a tremendous challenge. … There won’t be cuts that won’t be felt.”

Looney went through the itemized list of reductions that included 16 line items. “We believe that if all these things are approved, we can handle the County Commission’s request to cut $2.3 million,” he said at the end of his presentation.

Asked by one of the board members if he thought the commission would come back and ask for additional cuts, Looney replied, “I think this is a sincere gesture on the budget committee’s part.”

Amendment to cut ‘stuff’ not people
Ninth district board member Barry Watkins offered an amendment to the motion to approve the cuts as presented. He proposed dropping any of the cuts involving personnel. He said the cuts should be limited to “stuff.”

“It would save all of the positions,” he said, but would cut only $1.4 million not $2.3 million.  

“How on earth can we in good conscience cut more positions?” Terry Leve Sixth District board member

Terry Leve, who represents east Brentwood’s sixth district, agreed philosophically with Watkins. “We’re growing schools, we’re not cutting schools,” he said.

“How on earth can we in good conscience cut more positions?” Leve asked after mentioning the cuts to last year’s budget.

Watkins amendment was seconded by seventh district rep Susan Graham of Brentwood, who stressed her concerns about student instruction several times over the course of the meeting.

The majority of the board, however, was torn on the issue of going back to the committee with a smaller cut than requested.

“My biggest fear is that we end up with a stalemate and don’t have a budget,” Looney said, comparing it to a shell game. He noted that while he didn’t want to start the school year with the trimmed budget, “We could have school.”

Relationship with county important
“We have to have a positive, working relationship with the county commission,” longtime board member Janice Mills said. Offering historical perspective, she said in the past eight to 10 years the board included budget items that could be cut if needed.

“This year we cut everything before we sent it. We hoped the county commission would see that,” Mills said.

On a more positive note, WCS finance director Leslie Holman reported that the county’s sales tax revenue was increasing and other economic indicators show growth. Gary Anderson, who represents the fifth district, asked his fellow board members to “stop focusing on cuts but think about the revenues.” He told the board to listen to Holman, who is known for her financial acumen.

“I just think that we’re not that far off on this,” Anderson concluded.

In the end, Watkins’ amendment failed 8-2, with only Watkins and Graham voting for it.

Need for nurses continues to grow
Once the original motion to accept the $2.3 million in cuts came up for discussion, the conversation turned back to the topic of school nurses and the proposal presented by director of health services Jill Casada, R.N. The cuts included two “growth” positions for school nurses.

Asked specifically by Mills if the cut would have consequences, Casada replied, “Yes, there’s absolutely a safety risk.

“I’m going to have to be honest and say yes, that’s going to be a compromise.”

With two new schools opening this year, staff suggested that county schools that share or have adjoining campuses, such as Brentwood middle and high schools and Sunset elementary and middle schools, could share 1.5 nursing positions.

Staffing for nurses is determined by need, Casada explained. She noted that when she started with the district in 1999, one student in the whole school system required a nurse. Today one in six students at every school have a need.

“It’s a tough issue,” she said.

“Are we going to allow a PTO to fund a school nurse when that comes up?” Graham asked.

Looney said that would need to be a conversation the board would need to have as a group.

Watkins interjected that PTO funding of personnel is not equitable and shouldn’t be allowed. “The county commission is our funding authority and we need to hold them to it,” he said.

At 11:05 p.m., Holman told Looney she had crunched the numbers in a way that she was able to switch the nursing position funds to another line item and save them.

With that, the motion was brought to a vote. The $2.3 million cut was approved on a 9-1 vote with Watkins dissenting.