photo by: Journal-World

Lawrence Public Schools district offices pictured in April 2021.

As the Lawrence school board on Monday heard several cost-cutting proposals to help balance the district’s budget next year, board members also expressed a possible need to cut further than the bare minimum required.

The school district is facing at least a $3.3 million shortfall in its budget for the 2022-23 school year because of a decrease in state funding that is expected to come from recent enrollment declines. However, the board members acknowledged during a work session that cutting just that amount would only balance the budget, not necessarily leave any dollars available to be used elsewhere if needed.

Board members Shannon Kimball and Kelly Jones both said the board should consider even further cuts to the budget to make sure the board will have funding to use toward faculty and staff compensation increases next school year as well.

“It would be unacceptable to me to not explore that as a board member, and I anticipate that would be the feeling of our staff,” Jones said.

The board members suggested they may need to make even steeper cuts to make that possible. While they did not provide a specific number they would want to reach, they spoke in general terms of cutting up to $7 million, which is roughly double what the school district is currently considering.

Whether cutting that much from the budget is possible remains to be seen. District finance director Kathy Johnson said the district will continue to provide cost saving proposals, but it will be up to the board on how far they want to go in terms of cuts.

Superintendent Anthony Lewis echoed the board’s concerns about having enough dollars left over for faculty and staff compensation increases. He said providing those workers with better pay will be important toward the district’s goal to retain its faculty and staff. The suggestion comes as the district has seen an increase in teachers quitting their jobs midyear, likely because of the effects the coronavirus pandemic has had on teaching.

“Now more than ever, it is critically important that we retain our staff,” Lewis said. “The more we can do to compensate our staff and help retain them, the better.”

As the Journal-World previously reported, the district’s board and evaluation committee has explored many proposals for cost savings, including closing or repurposing an elementary school, such as the proposal to turn New York Elementary into a Montessori school.

The proposals also included reducing staff positions at several different levels, such as eliminating middle school assistant principals, executive director positions in the district administration and some coaching and fine arts leadership positions, among several other options.

All told, there are 27 current proposals. However, many of the proposals are “interwoven,” meaning one decision may affect whether some of the other cost savings are either required or no longer possible, Johnson said. She also said none of the proposals are imminent and the board will need to fully consider which to enact.

The board did not make any specific decisions or recommend proposals for the district administration to follow. Instead, the board asked for the district’s administration to explore and provide more information about the proposals that the board believes is needed to make difficult decisions.

For example, the board members said they wanted to make sure any decisions that are made are fully considered, such as whether they may come with any unintended consequences or would cause any issues that are contrary to the district’s focus on improving equity. To that end, the board asked Johnson to have the equity analyses done for the proposals.

They also asked for an analysis on the district’s administrative costs compared to peer school districts to understand if the district is “administrative heavy.”

Meanwhile, Kimball asked the other board members to consider making decisions based on strategic thinking, rather than looking for Band-Aids to fill the budget gap. She said an example of Band-Aids in the past was the district cutting support staff positions with the thinking they were no longer needed, only for the district administration to come back a few years later and ask for those positions to be refilled.

While the decisions the board will need to make will be difficult, Lewis said it also provides the district with the opportunity to “look holistically” at how the district operates and make cuts with that in mind.

“This is a way for us to be really innovative in our approach,” he said.