photo by: USD 497

The Lawrence school board meets at district offices on April 11, 2022.

The Lawrence school board has approved about $341,000 in additional budget reductions, including cuts to teacher support positions and administration.

As part of its meeting Monday, the board voted 5-2 to approve a recommendation from district administrators for an additional $340,962 in budget cuts, bringing the total of recently approved cuts to about $6.41 million for next school year. Kay Emerson and Carole Cadue-Blackwood opposed the measure.

In remarks at the beginning of the meeting, Superintendent Anthony Lewis said the district will implement the budget reductions in ways that keep student needs at the forefront. Lewis said such significant cuts will require a change in the way the district does business.

“So there will be losses,” Lewis said. “We will be challenged to do more for our students with less resources.”

The plan approved Monday comprises additional administration reductions in the amount of $177,441 and $163,521 in reductions to learning coaches, which provide support for teachers. The vote also finalized the board’s previously agreed upon desire to only cut $264,320 from school libraries.

Before the vote, Emerson made a motion to only approve the cuts to administration and not the cuts to learning coaches, thereby reducing the overall budget reduction package by $163,521. Emerson said there are a lot of unknowns regarding what additional supports are going to be needed in elementary buildings, and that learning coaches helped address that need.

“We know that learning coaches provide that additional support for our educators,” Emerson said.

Emerson said that as district administrators work to implement the budget reductions, they could potentially come back to the board for additional discussion. Emerson’s motion failed 5-2, with Emerson and Cadue-Blackwood voting in favor.

Board Vice President Shannon Kimball said she was not interested in reducing the total amount of the budget cuts in part because of the board’s longstanding goal to increase staff compensation.

“I feel like as a board member, I have to put the money where we’ve been saying we want to put it for years,” Kimball said. She also said that if district administrators weren’t comfortable with cutting learning coaches, they had the flexibility not to recommend that reduction.

The district is required by state law to approve a balanced budget, and the district estimated the board had to make up to $4.27 million worth of cuts to meet that requirement. That portion of the district’s budget reductions was due mainly to declining enrollment. The more than $2 million in cuts approved beyond the statutory requirement will help fund raises to district staff.

The board previously approved 20 budget reductions totaling about $5.8 million as part of its meeting March 28. As part of that meeting, in order to reduce the amount of cuts proposed for school libraries, the board directed district administrators to identify an additional $341,000 in budget reductions through a combination of cuts to administration and learning coaches.

The $177,441 in administrative cuts approved Monday are in addition to $400,000 in administrative staff reductions previously approved by the board. In response to a question from board member Kelly Jones about what the additional reduction entailed, Lewis said it was primarily at the central office level. Regarding the learning coach reduction, Finance Director Cynde Frick said the cut represented two positions.

Lewis told the board that when it came to implementing the cuts, there were a lot of moving parts, including recent and potentially upcoming staff retirements and resignations. He said the district would need to shift responsibilities as it worked to “operationalize” the cuts, and that district staff could provide the board an update at its next meeting.