School board starts to wrestle with
declining revenue expectations

With the "new normal" of budget cuts ahead, the Grosse Pointe Board of Education set to work this week on considering just what that means.

The school board’s meeting yesterday (Nov. 23) at the North High School library began with an hour-long special work session.

School board vice president Brendan Walsh led that event as he and his colleagues examined updates on staffing utilization, enrollment projections, elective attendance, proposed class sizes, health care and budget cuts.

With the "new normal" of budget cuts ahead, the Grosse Pointe Board of Education set to work this week on considering just what that means.

The school board’s meeting yesterday (Nov. 23) at the North High School library began with an hour-long special work session.

School board vice president Brendan Walsh led that event as he and his colleagues examined updates on staffing utilization, enrollment projections, elective attendance, proposed class sizes, health care and budget cuts.

“What we know is that, unfortunately at the end of this process, there will be a variety of people impacted through loss of jobs,” he said. “We’re in an unfortunate situation where human resources costs are continuing to expand … despite staff layoffs in the past.”

Three teachers spoke before the board, asking it to limit future cuts as much as possible, because they have already been asked to do more with less.

“Our budget has gone from getting upfront money from the high school of $15,000 in 1994 to just about $6,000 today,” said Ellen Bowen, a music teacher at Grosse Pointe South High School. “How much more can we cut from our teachers and how long can we be expected to improvise with larger classes and less offerings?”

Bowen said she spoke for the fine and performing arts department when asking to let them celebrate the holidays with a new contract.

“We have never disappointed you with students' performances,” she said. “Please don’t disappoint us, as we have always done more with less.”

Mark David, a science teacher at South, said he heard a rumor the school board would offer a retirement incentive.

“This common-sense approach might be an effective method of cutting cost while saving programs and personnel,” he said. “A reasonable tax incentive would save the district at least $2 million a year, every year for several years.”

Jeff Nardone is a journalism and English teacher at South. He told the board to realize their budgets affect teachers the most.

“I keep wondering when the future’s going to say ‘you can only do less with less,’” he said.

Walsh said their goal was not to come to any conclusions from the information, but simply to absorb it for coming to decisions later.

Walsh said in the past they’ve talked about the appropriate number of special education teachers based on class sizes and they should examine all other faculty and staff positions similarly.

“Our approach this year is not to roll over and cut back,” he said. “Our approach is to effectively allocate from point zero … all of these as to what we’re going to fund straightforward.”

Assistant Superintendent Susan Allan said electives would become denser.

“Some courses need to be eliminated,” she said. “Students may not get first choice of course, but I think that is going to be essential.”

Walsh said the board would not make any decisions on class sizes until staff changes have been made.

Board member John Steininger said they had received a letter from the schools’ attorneys indicating they would accept not receiving an increase in legal fees for next year.

“If we’re all going to share in the pain … I’d like to see if they’re open to a cut and I’d like that cut proportionate to the decrease in revenue we’re seeing from the state,” he said.

Additional reports that some board members thought would be helpful in the future include limitations on staff reduction and low-enrollment classes.

During the subsequent regularly scheduled board meeting, it was announced that its district independent financial audit was clean and unqualified.

Walsh pointed out that although this audit’s general fund saw a slight decrease of $87,000, overall revenues have increased $9.6 million in five years.

The board has also been able to save $3.5 million in benchmarking and fund equity saw a 38 percent increase of $5.6 million.

“In one week, due to what happened in Lansing, $4.1 million of that is gone,” he said. “This is a big ol’ bear we’re fighting right now. Bigger than any one we’ve ever fought before. We all need to brace ourselves.”

The board also approved $28,532 in gifts from the Grosse Pointe Foundation for Public Education.

Much of the remainder of the meeting consisted of a report from Wayne RESA superintendant Chris Wigent, passing out Distinguished Employee Service Awards and the approval of South chorus’ field trip to Greece.

Treasurer Fred Minturn was absent due to family obligations. 

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