Wednesday, Feb. 02, 2011

At 'Kitchen Table,' ideas for cutting spending

Parents and school leaders gathered last week in the Clayton High cafeteria to cook up a new spending menu for Johnston County schools.

Last Tuesday, representatives from advisory councils, booster clubs and parent-teacher groups joined principals and staff members from seven Clayton schools to kick off Superintendent Ed Croom's "Kitchen Table Conversations."

With school funding likely to plummet in the upcoming year, Croom said he wanted to hear from parents before making spending cuts. "You folks are smart; maybe you've thought of ideas that we haven't," he said.

Croom first laid out the schools' funding sources - state, county and federal dollars. The feds are most restrictive, he said, giving the schools little leeway in how they spend federal dollars. "If they say we have to buy a red ink pen for a certain group of people, then we have to buy a red pen for a certain group of people," Croom said.

While Croom talked, his audience of more than 50 people scribbled notes and flipped through a pamphlet titled "Understanding School Budgets."

The superintendent suggested that next year's budget would place the emphasis on the basics. Costly programs that serve small numbers of students might not survive, he said.

"Athletics, AIG, Early College, Middle College - they're all important, but we can't keep losing money," he said. "You're going to help me put the budget together."

Croom then divided his audience into groups representing each Clayton school and gave each an oversized, lined sheet of paper and a marker to document its cost-cutting ideas. Schools represented at the meeting were Clayton High, Clayton Middle, Cooper Elementary, East Clayton Elementary, Riverwood Elementary, Riverwood Middle and West Clayton Elementary.

Members of the Clayton High group huddled at a table in the corner to stir the pot.

"Students have to qualify to get free lunches, maybe they should have to qualify to ride the bus," one Clayton High representative said.

Kendall Houston, a member of the Clayton High Booster Club, suggested the school save money by buying its electricity from Progress Energy instead of the Town of Clayton.

After Clayton High Principal Clint Eaves deemed textbooks and classroom supplies "untouchable," the Clayton High group wondered how to keep those items in the budget. Perhaps the schools could cut salaries and benefits, the group said, before agreeing that good pay helps keep good teachers. Perhaps a salary freeze, then.

By the end of the evening, the Clayton High group had assembled a long list of potential cuts. But its top recommendation mirrored that of nearly every other school group: shutter the AIG Center in Smithfield and shut down the Middle College and Early College programs, which are based at Johnston Community College.

Closing the AIG Center would save about $376,000 per year. The Middle College program, which allows high school students to earn college credits for free, costs about $154,000 a year. The Early College Academy allows students to earn a high school diploma and a two-year associate's degree in five years. It costs about $307,000 a year to operate.

"My group of parents saw no need for those programs," said Eaves, the Clayton High principal. "It seems dropping those would be the quickest way to save money."

The Clayton High group also asked Croom to consider measures to cut utility and transportation costs.

Croom said he was encouraged by the crowd's responses. "They shared things with me that were troubling and thought provoking," he said. "It's been worth it. I'm looking forward to the others."

The superintendent said the school board would consider the "Kitchen Table" recommendations during its retreat in early March. The school system also plans to post the recommendations on its website.