Being nearly 100 students down in enrollment, the Lebanon Community School Corp. recently cut six positions to balance the budget to start out the 2015-16 school year.
Enrollment numbers determine the amount of state funding the corporation receives. With a reduction in the number of students there will also be a reduction in state funding, which creates the school system’s general fund. Schools do not know what the state funding will be until September, when the average daily maintenance number is taken. But Superintendent Dr. Robert Taylor said they need to be proactive instead of reactive.
“You start the year hoping you have enough money, hoping you made the right decisions with the teachers and personnel on board,” Taylor said. “I am very comfortable with the decisions we’ve made. I think they will have the desired positive impact on getting the budget reduction taken care of and getting us back into a solid financial position.”
Six positions were eliminated at Lebanon schools last month, Taylor said. The corporation had offered a $15,000 early retirement incentive in the hopes that a good number of teachers would take advantage of it, thereby not requiring the corporation to eliminate teachers. But only two teachers retired; the average number of retiring teachers in a year is eight to 10, Taylor said.
Most of the people in the cut positions were able to be worked into another position, Taylor said. Some teachers decided to accept the cut from full time to part time and some took jobs at another school in the corporation. Two teachers — one at Lebanon High School and one at Lebanon Middle School — were fired from LCSC.
“I feel badly about that, but circumstances required us to make some cuts,” Taylor said. “We can’t start a school year operating nearly $1 million in the red. That’s not fair to taxpayers.”
Because they are responding proactively, Taylor said, they were able to avoid cutting any programs or causing class sizes to increase. All course offerings are being maintained, but some may just be offered every other year instead of every year, he said. Putting off these cuts may have put the corporation in a tougher situation next year, having to cut several more positions that could impact class sizes and programming.
“Taking a good perspective on a bad situation is we didn’t lose any programs,” Taylor said. “And as we sit here today, I don’t anticipate class sizes that will be any larger than they were last year.” The largest class size was 31 students in a fifth-grade class.
One administrative position was also cut — an assistant principal position at LHS. That employee has taken another job in the corporation. LHS went from four assistant principals to three.
The corporation as a whole is down 85 students; LHS’ enrollment is below 1,000 students. Its enrollment was once near 1,100. Though Taylor isn’t exactly sure why there was such a drop in enrollment, there are several factors that play into it. Some students moved away, somebegan being home-schooled and some dropped out. There is some new programming coming soon that will help students who need alternative programs to stay in school instead of dropping out, Taylor said.
“I’m pretty confident that we will get some of these students back,” he said. “We seem to be a district that’s growing, particularly in the Perry Worth area. I can almost guarantee those kids will come back, but there are no guarantees in schools.”
Taylor also hopes to see the eliminated positions come back. Part of the benefit of keeping teachers on as half time or working them into other positions in the corporation is that, when the enrollment numbers come back up, they are there to be able to fill their original position again. Future resignations and retirements will also help create opportunities to bring these teachers back, he said.
As things look right now, Taylor said there won’t need to be any other cuts or changes for the next school year. But, he said, if enrollment numbers are lower than they are now, additional changes will be likely.
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