North Clackamas School District plans budget and employee cuts to protect dwindling surplus
By Nicole Dungca, The Oregonian
May 01, 2010, 5:45AM
While the North Clackamas School Districtprepares to unveil its proposed budget for the 2010-11 school year in the coming weeks, officials and budget committee members are eager to protect the district's dwindling reserve funds.
Like hundreds of school districts across the country, North Clackamas is sounding the alarm as it cuts teaching positions, reduces services and dips into reserves amid a weak economy.
North Clackamas has drawn upon its surplus, or "fund balance," to help plug budget gaps in the past couple of years, Superintendent Tim Mills said.
District officials do not plan to use the fund balance to help plug the 2010-11 budget, which Mills predicted to be about $138 million, up about $2.5 million from this school year's approved budget.
In summer 2008, the district's fund balance was $7,479,508, a sum achieved when the district approved a budget that did not take into account significant funds later approved by the Legislature. By June, the district expects the fund balance to be $1,975,826, said Jim Langstraat, the district's chief financial officer.
During an April budget committee work session, that figure shocked a number of committee members, including North Clackamas School Board chairwoman Cheryl Myers.
"(The fund balance) is at an uncomfortably low level," she said.
Mills agrees with the sentiment. "We think it is certainly a low number," said Mills, who was hired by the district in July. "We really believe we should be
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