On February 14, the district administration proposed a plan to the school board that, if approved, the plan would close our gap and save the district in total $3,095,000. The cost-cutting measures implemented would bring major changes throughout the district.
The first step of the proposed cost-cutting plan is to extend the life of laptops at the middle and high school to 5 years, which should save the district about $200,000.
While they were not introduced to save the district money, Farr believes that if used properly they could.
“Technology hasn’t saved us much money but it’s really about how do students learn today,” Farr said. “Ideally, we would reduce paper consumption, but we haven’t seen that yet.”
Another part would be waiting to buy instructional licenses for a year, which would save CASD $60,000. The district also plans to defer some maintenance projects by a year, saving $300,000.
The district also would reduce the number of students going to outside facilities for the school, including River Rock and Diakon, by four students, saving the district $100,000.
The district would restructure staffing in support positions and reduce the number of teaching positions by 6. These combined actions would save the district $1,130,000.
The final short-term change for the district would be an increase in property tax to 3.0%., adding $1,305,000 in revenue to the budget.
There were also some long-term proposals brought to the school board on the 14th, including the restructuring of the administration team to address efficiencies, the utilization of more online courses, a reduction in course offerings, the restructuring of K-12 course alignment, reconfiguration of elementary programming, the restructure of extra-curricular offerings, and increasing partnerships with neighboring districts to increase efficiencies.
If approved, these would go into effect over the next few months and years. They will be voted on during an upcoming school board meeting.
