South Washington Schools' special education and athletic departments will have to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from next year's budget, the school board has decided.
The cuts are part of $1.215 million the school board decided to trim last month from its proposed $154 million 2012-13 school year budget to avoid a deficit. The board also is using more money from reserves to keep from having to cut more. The current school year's budget is $150,368,167.
"We're strategically bringing our fund balance down to protect our class size and protect the core subjects we've always put pride into," said Board Member Ron Kath.
The athletic department will either increase its fees or cut program spending to provide $100,000 in savings for the district, administrators said.
The special education department will cut $500,000 by ending contracts with outside consultants and instead provide those services in-house.
Many of the cuts have not gone over well with the district's families.
"You may not like the ... tone of my memo or speech, but I think the board needs a wake-up call when it comes to special education," Michele McAlister, a district parent and member of the district's special education advisory group, told the board before its March 22 vote.
"Our children are indeed special and deserve better from this administration. Even minor changes affect them and, through them, their families. What is proposed to you in this budget is bigger than it looks on paper. In the end we do not get to make the decision. You do. But you should do so judiciously."
