District looks at lowered revenues

With a loss of funding and a voluntary reduction in school budgets requested by Gov. Mark Gordon, Sweetwater County School District No. 2 is moving forward with a voluntary reduction incentive plan.

The plan was approved unanimously by the district’s board of trustees last week.

During a presentation to the board last week, Superintendent Craig Barringer said the district is down 211 students from the 2019-2020 school year, which will lead to a projected loss of $855,000 in funding. In total, the district is projecting a loss of $988,400 in funding for the 2021-2022 school year. This is compounded with a 10% voluntary reduction to school budgets requested by Gov. Gordon, through the district hasn’t received any guidance from the state in regards to how it should accomplish that cut, or when administrators can expect it. The full 10% Gov. Gordon requested translates to $4,050,000 for the school district, though it is unclear if it would be done in phases or in one singular budget request.

“We do not know where this is going to land right now,” Chris Dean, the district’s business manager told the board.

The request was met with a quick rebuttal by the board’s chairman.

“We could also tell him no, we’re not going to do it,” Board chairman Steve Core said.

Core said the reduction is a voluntary request from the governor, who does not set the state school districts’ funding amounts. The Wyoming Legislature allocates education spending in Wyoming.

“That was what was strange about the request ... it has never come from the governor,” Dean said.

Regardless of if the district will follow the Gov. Gordon’s request or not, the district faces declining revenues tied with its decreasing enrollment numbers. Further funding concerns come from a potential recalibration of district funding from the state, which could see increased class sizes, reductions in amounts allocated to student supplies and activities, as well as health insurance funding. Recalibration could also result in a continuation of the special education funding cap and a reinstatement of a transportation cap.

Dean said administrators have identified a need to reduce staff in response to that decline. Up to 15 certified professional staff, seven support staff, three supervisors and four administrators would need to be reduced from the district’s head count, with the district’s administrators proposing a voluntary separation plan to hopefully avoid a situation where the district would layoff employees.

According to Dean, 83 employees would be eligible for the plan. The incentive would pay those deciding to leave the district a set amount in relation to their role with the district. Administrators would receive $62,000, supervisors would get $52,000 and certified professional staff would receive $42,000. Three tiers exist in the support staff plan, with 12-month employees eligible fore $22,000, 10-month employees receiving $18,300 and nine-month employees receiving $16,500.

The onetime payments is projected to cost the district between $885,000 and $1.1 million, but ongoing savings are projected to be $1.4 million to $1.64 million. A timeline provided by the district reveals the 83 employees targeted by the plan would have until Jan. 6 to complete voluntary separation documents, with the school board approving the volunteers during its Jan 12 meeting. Volunteers would receive notice of board approval the next day, with Feb. 26 being the last day the volunteers could sign the separation agreement. Volunteers would then have seven days to rescind their agreement with the district.

Certified professionals’ final pay day would be June 7, while the final pay for administrators, supervisors and support staff would be June 30. The incentives would be paid to the volunteers that same day.