From .02% to 4.82%
May 23, 2008
Thanks to the hard work of Superintendent Terry Noble and Director of Finance Brent Bell, the Mehlville School District now projects our end of year budget for the 09/10 school year to be 4.82%. The previous projection was .02%. The 4.82% puts the district almost two full percentage points over the states financially distressed list.
That is the good news; the bad news is that the new balances come from a series of heartbreaking cuts. Once again, the teachers are getting a $0 pay raise, a $300,000 cut in text book purchases, $112,000 in tutoring cuts, $100,000 in reduced maintenance, $78,000 in administrative restructuring, a $300,000 cut in teacher supplies, and more.
I also would like to make another point…
Our budget woes are not because the Mehlville School District gave teachers 6% raises last year. Granted, with proper balance projections, the 6% raise would not have been granted, or even considered, for that matter.
Most likely, if proper projections were given, the teachers would have seen anything from a 0 to 3% raise. This would have bought the district another a year or two of surviving, but that is it. Another year or two of survival. Another year or two of continued mediocrity in education.
However, this would not have changed anything in the big picture. The big picture being that the Mehlville School District does not have enough funding to run a high performing school district. Plain and simple, our budget woes are because we do not have enough funding to educate to our best ability. The children of Mehlville could be getting a better education.
We do not have enough funding to retain and acquire a proper level of high quality teachers. We do not have enough funding to acquire and maintain educational and operational technology. We do not have enough funding to provide proper and desired levels of safety and security. We do not have enough funding to build and maintain a quality infrastructure. We do not have enough funding…well, the list goes on, and on, and on.
The bottom line is this, the board and the administration and everyone else in this district has to live within its means, and historically, the Mehlville School District has done that. We had one bad year based on some bad budget projections from an interim administration. That one bad year and interim administration should not define a district that historically squeezes blood from turnips, and it certainly should not define the future of this school district.
Mehlville is so close to being a top-level, high-performing school district. But where we are sitting right now is on a precipice, on a dangerous edge, teetering between absolute disaster and absolute success, and depending on the direction of the wind at any given time, this bus will either rest steady and make its way to a higher plateau, or it will do what the contextually blind think it has already done, tumbling and bumbling its way into a ditch.
Contrary to some recent sensationalism, thanks to the solid leadership of Superintendent Terry Noble, I believe we are headed to the higher plateau.
