After a year of tough financial decisions, Supt. Steve Fisher said next year could be even more difficult.
New Castle Community School Corp. and schools around the state are bracing for the possibility of deeper budget cuts for next year. Fisher said that warning came in an e-mail he and other superintendents received from the Indiana Department of Education.
In the e-mail, Chief Financial Officer Lance Rhodes recommends schools starting to budget for 2011 to "assume levels that represent percentage reductions similar to 2010 reductions."
Fisher said he interprets that to mean schools should count on budget cuts around 4.5 percent. And he and other superintendents believe those cuts will be announced after the November election.
NCCSC was already forced to cut that amount this year as the result of state cuts. Those cuts came on top of property tax shortfalls and a drop in enrollment.
Fisher said he and the school board made decisions this year that weren't easy, like closing Greenstreet Elementary School and laying off 31 teachers. But if there are more cuts next year, he said, those decisions will be even harder.
"We've cut through the meat, we've cut through the bone," he said. "I don't know where else to cut."
Fisher said he won't make further cuts until he knows exactly what the state plans to do. In the meantime, though, he said NCCSC is in talks with a group called Energy Education.
That group has had success with guiding school corporations in conserving energy. Even with the small amount of conservation they've already done, Fisher said they're already seeing a positive impact.
The corporation is also looking into completely paperless paychecks. Though many teachers receive their checks by direct deposit, he said all still get paper pay stubs. On a paperless system, he said, even the pay stubs would be online.
If the cuts come, though, Fisher said bigger changes could be on the horizon. One plan he other officials have discussed is moving sixth-graders to New Castle Middle School. He said that would create more room in elementary schools so that another building could be closed.
But Fisher said no decisions will be made until Daniels announces more cuts.
"I want to see just how good or how bad it is before we panic," he said.
Fisher said he's hopeful that the state legislature will come up with a plan to help schools. That could mean either providing more funding or giving schools a way to raise more revenue, he said.
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