DeSoto ISD board addresses deficit budget situation

by Daphne Brown of DeSoto TODAY

There's good and bad news in terms of the DeSoto School District's financial outlook.

Initial measures to cut the district's more than $8 million funding shortage have been a success, according to DeSoto's Chief Financial Officer Bobby LaBorde. He had projected the district's food service department would need an additional $300,000 to cover mounting expenses.

“Staff enacted several cost-saving measures like reducing portion sizes, now they won't need the $300,000,” LaBorde said. “That's a lot of hard work that's taken place in about half a year's time.

“The things we're doing are working, it's just a matter of getting everybody on board with them,” he said.

Also, first six weeks attendance numbers are finalized and LaBorde reported to the board during the first of its monthly budget workshops Oct. 13 that the district had 97.5 percent attendance rate. He said that is up three percentage points above last year.

The figure represents some $522,595 in additional state aid, he said.

“That's the power of students - getting them in here and getting them to class,” LaBorde said.

That is the good news.

On the flip side, LaBorde and Superintendent Lloyd Treadwell said while the savings are worth noting, they aren't enough to solve all of the district's financial worries.

Treadwell said DeSoto is being heavily compared to the Dallas school district, short a total of $85 million - a combination of last year's and this year's miscalculations.

“While we're certainly not happy about the budget, we're a couple of million ahead of where we thought we'd be. But we need to cut $8 million and that's not going to happen without considering personnel and programs,” Treadwell said.

He pointed out the four rollback elections that passed in Ellis County while asking the rhetorical question about two other unsupported ones.

“What's Duncanville and Cedar Hill going to do now that their elections didn't pass?” he said. Lancaster is asking its employees to give up the raises that they passed.”

DeSoto School Boardmember Dee Trimble said his impression of the night's meeting involved reviewing possible programs to cut. He pointed out that administrators could not ask teachers to help raise student test scores while simultaneously cutting personnel. That's a morale issue, he said.

Treadwell said there would be no laundry list of programs to consider that evening, other than the initial one LaBorde provided to boardmembers prior to their acceptance of the 2008-09 budget last month in which common-sense items were included on the proverbial chopping block.

“The district has put $1 million in the Fast Forward program in the last 24 months. We've cut that program but we still have 12 aids on staff. We can put them on the table tonight and deliver pink slips in the morning,” Treadwell said as an example.

Not addressing Treadwell's comment, Trimble said the board needed to identify things the district could cut, whether it was pleasant to face or not. He said there were no dollar amounts attached to LaBorde's previous list, which is the type of information he needed to form some ideas about where to begin the difficult process.

“We need to give the community some idea about what we have in mind. The earlier the better,” Treadwell said.

DeSoto School Boardmember Don McKinley concurred with Trimble.

“When we ID the challenges we have, it makes it that much more credible. Let people know X,Y, Z. The sooner we do that, the better we'll be as a community,” McKinley said.

LaBorde asked boardmembers if the list they wanted him to compile should include personnel figures because it could do more harm than good.

DeSoto School Boardmember Curt Krohn said he wanted the worst case scenario.

“This is uncomfortable for everyone. This gives me a headache even looking at it, but I'm a trustee in DeSoto, not Cedar Hill or Duncanville and I don't give a flip about what other districts are doing,” Krohn said.

Krohn added that the way he understood it, even if DeSoto had asked voters for and voters had passed a 13-cent school district tax increase, it wouldn't alleviate the need for millions of dollars in districtwide cuts.

“We've got to let the community know this is bad,” Krohn said.

Reiterating, Trimble said it was essential in his decision-making process to have figures attached to any possible cuts in order to have an appropriate view of each possible cut's impact.

“I want to look at our options,” Trimble said. “I'm not asking you to come in and do these things immediately.”

LaBorde said if the board begins discussing the impact of cutting 45 positions, for instance, that's what staff is going to concentrate on.

“Let me emphasize magnitude here,” Treadwell interjected. “If we were to cut the 160 positions it would take, you'd close out half of your district.”

DeSoto School Boardmember Kenzie Moore wanted to consider a list without personnel costs calculated.

Krohn said any perceptive person is going to realize that cutting staff has to be among the board's solutions.

McKinley suggested the possibility of selling district property but the school board vice president, spearheading the meeting in President Don Gant's absence, cautioned McKinley on the ability to go such a route where bond funds may have been involved.

“Dallas ISD made a mistake,” Krohn said. “We made a decision and we are doing our best.

“We've got to show our community that we realize our most valuable asset is the kids that fill our classrooms,” he continued. “We've got to show a good faith effort to our community.”

Trimble said the upcoming decisions the board has to make is not “you-versus-us stuff.”

“We made those decisions and I'm not bashful about the teacher pay raises, but we've got to get back on track,” Trimble said.

Treadwell said LaBorde could not generate a list of cuts for the board.

“This is something that has to be developed by the entire staff,” he said. “I've got to go to Sharon (Price, chief operations officer) and ask how she can cut her budget by $1 million or Dr. Crenshaw (chief academic officer).

“And then I've got to go to the principals, which I'm really hesitant to do at this time, and ask them what programs can you cut?” Treadwell said. “We can piecemeal an assumptive list and get it in the format you want it and ask people what are the first and last things they'd get rid of.”

Treadwell said in essence it is asking building principals what electives they'd cut because it certainly wouldn't be any of the core courses - math, science, English or social studies.

The next budget workshop is a special called meeting set for Nov. 20, following the one regularly scheduled board meeting of the month Nov. 10.

“Just so there are no surprises on Nov. 20,” Treadwell said. “I won't know how to cut this budget without personnel cuts.”