Wichita district officials unsure how $3 million budget cut will play out

Wichita public school officials say they don’t know precisely how they’ll trim $3 million from the district’s budget, after Gov. Sam Brownback announced Thursday that he will cut funding for public schools and higher education.

“At this time, we are still assessing how we will make this cut in our district budget,” said John Allison, superintendent of Wichita schools, in a written statement.

“Although disappointing, especially coming after careful planning was done prior to budget approval, it is vital that we not let these actions deter us from steadfast focus on our students,” he said.

The cuts, which do not need legislative approval and will go into effect March 7, would trim an estimated $5 million from school districts in Sedgwick County and Andover, Wichita district officials said.

Allison said the cuts will hurt because of the timing, as well as the loss.

The state’s budget year runs from July 1 to June 30. Cutting after a school budget has already been operating is always troublesome, Allison said, “and we’ve still got five months go get through the rest of the school year.

What worries him more, he said, in a Friday afternoon news conference, is what might happen in the future, given the strong downward trend of state revenue collections and state budget cuts.

“Our biggest fear in school districts is … how big a hole does this eventually become?”

A big concern, he said, as he’s watched state numbers decline year after year is whether anyone will want to go into teaching.

“A bigger problem we will face, three to five to ten from now, is that if you a student in (college), looking at the amount of school loans you have to carry, are you going to become a teacher, given what is happening? It’s not just that we’re pricing individuals out of being teachers now.”

But it’s not just teachers he’s hearing worries from now, he said. It’s mostly parents, “wondering what the future of their child’s education is going to look like.”

Business people also are expressing concerns, Allison said. At a chamber of commerce roundtable meeting on Thursday, he said, local business leaders said repeatedly that job growth here depends on having a “viable system of community schools.”

Last summer, as Wichita district officials were developing their budget, finance director Jim Freeman said he was watching troubling reports about shortfalls in state revenue. He said the situation mirrored the 2009-10 fiscal year, when reductions in state revenue because of the recession prompted mid-year school funding cuts.

That year Wichita, the state’s largest school district, eliminated 117 positions, cut the driver’s education program at high schools, closed an alternative high school and did away with school resource officers in middle schools, among other cuts and program changes.

“As I build (the budget), I’m going to have to be much more conservative,” Freeman said in June. “Because if we get to the middle of the year and I have to make $5 million in cuts, I have to think about that in terms of what we’re going to do.”

Brownback argued Thursday that school spending is driving the state’s financial woes. He called on districts to draw from an estimated $381 million in reserve fund balances to help offset the cuts to state funding. Schools still would receive more funding than they did last year, but less than they were supposed to receive this year.

In the past, Allison and other school officials have argued against using funds from carryover cash balances because they say the money is critical to the district’s cash flow. When payments from the state are late – as they have been several times a year in recent history – the district has to draw from reserves to meet payroll and other expenses.

“Unencumbered cash does not mean extra money just sitting around,” Allison told the school board during budget discussions in 2011. “These are budgeted. … If you borrow that for other expenses, the money is not there when the bills come due.”

This story was originally published February 6, 2015 at 8:23 AM with the headline "Wichita district officials unsure how $3 million budget cut will play out."