District Budget

General Observations

First, a big thank you to the administration and staff that have put in countless hours to compile and analyze the items before the board for discussion. When you start looking at positions to cut and are able to identify them with a specific individual it really gets tough to throw those items out for discussion. I think that when you need to drastically reduce spending like we have that there are NO areas that are off limits.

The Survey

The administrators and the board are to complete a survey by tomorrow. The survey is to rate the negative impact each item has on district goals....in our opinion. Ms. Fox has informed us that after consulting the WASB legal counsel that our completion of the survey does not violate Open Meetings laws. The reasoning is that we as a board are not making decisions or having discussions. Since this survey is just an advisory piece to help Mr. Gerlach make a recommendation to the board this reasoning makes sense to me.

I know that some have asked to make the boards surveys public, but I think that should rest with each member. Assuming I have saved mine correctly, I will post it here. I did not post a response to some of the questions, because my opinion carries little weight vs. the administrations. I have thoughts and opinions on each of these areas, but I do not have the expertise to rate the negative impact increasing class size has on our goals (for example). Increasing class size ranges to help stop overload pay I do feel able to rate, because that is a strictly financial decision in my opinion.

Budget E-Mails

I have received many e-mails at my board address (jason_mccutchin@mononagrove.org), as have other board members. Please keep them coming. While I don't respond to them all individually please be assured that I do take the the time to read them and save them for reference.