Brevard School Board must cut $3.6M from budget — this month

BY KATE BRENNAN Florida TodayMonday, March 24, 2008
VIERA — With the school year two-thirds over and most of the money spent, the Brevard County School Board faces the daunting task of cutting another $3.6 million from its budget this month.
Superintendent Richard DiPatri wants the board to go even further at tonight's meeting. He recommended the board cut about $2 million more to brace for budget reductions next year that he said could run as high as $35 million if state revenue shortfalls worsen.
"I'm real nervous about next year, and I'm trying to build up as many reserves as I can," DiPatri told the board earlier this month. "I'm taking a very cautious, conservative approach."
In total, Brevard Public Schools has lost about $13.6 million this year from its $587 million operating budget, or just more than 2 percent.
The board already has pared down its budget by about $10 million through cost-saving measures implemented last August, including freezing 45 vacant positions, requiring each district department to reduce its budget by 10 percent and reining in employee travel expenses.
To trim the remaining $3.6 million and roll over nearly $2 million into next year's budget, DiPatri recommended:
•Reducing summer school programs by $1.83 million by cutting all enrichment programs and credit makeup courses and eliminating transportation, except for middle- and high-school exceptional education students.
•Reducing an emergency fund for capital projects by $1 million.
•Reducing the workers' compensation fund by $1.5 million.
Using two sources of revenue, the district is expecting $700,000 in state award money for middle-school students who earned a C or better in algebra, and $540,000 from a statewide settlement with Microsoft for overcharging districts for their products.
The board will decide whether to accept, reject or modify the recommended cuts today.
Board chair Janice Kershaw asked DiPatri to consider using a portion of the district's reserve funds to soften the blow from the budget cuts. But board members Amy Kneessy and Robert Jordan said they opposed dipping into the reserves now in case the situation gets worse later.
"We're saying $30 (million) to $35 million next year, but what's going to happen after that?" Jordan said. "How far is this going to go down? That's what really scares me. We really need to prepare for maybe five years of downward spiral."
Jordan, who said he'd prefer to ask each school and department to shave their budgets by a certain percent next year, expressed frustration at the way state lawmakers made cuts.
"So much for the governor saying they were going to hold education harmless because this is really harming us," he said.