IN YOUR CORNER
Our School District is experiencing some budgeting difficulties that
have made the newspapers recently, and hopefully "the blame game" is at
an end. With a shortfall in state revenue, some unexpectedly high
utility bills, and some sloppy budgeting that took place in between the
loss of one Financial Director and the hiring of another, the Board and
the Superintendent have their work cut out for them. Fortunately, the
School District had a reserve of $5 million. Unfortunately, that appears
to be all but gone.
There have been a variety of estimates of the amount of the shortfall
from the state funds. As you may have read, the Governor is conducting a
special session next week to work on this problem, and it is hoped that
we will then learn what amount is coming our way. Martin County only
gets one percent of its total budget from state funds; however, there is
a formula that allows each county to spend an allocation of roughly
$6,000/student through a combination of local ad valorem taxes and state
funds. This leaves us on par with every other county in the struggle to
get sufficient funding.
In its efforts to address the problem of lack of revenue, the School
District has already implemented a hiring freeze on teaching positions,
stopped all non-essential travel, and asked for a ten percent reduction
across the board of all budgets. This hasn't made up for the loss of
funds however. And like the straw that broke the camels back, five
hundred more students than planned for enrolled this year.
Our state lawmakers are proposing a bill," No Strings Attached", that
would allow more flexibility at the local level in administering our
district's budget. There are millions of dollars within each school
district that could be better spent if they weren't so specifically
required. It is estimated by our School District that $19.4 million
could be put to better use if they had the discretion to do so. There is
another $14.3 million that is the estimated cost of unfunded mandates by
the State. On Friday, Oct. 12, the teachers received a bonus of $850 per
teacher. This was another state mandate that we had to fulfill. While
individuals may disagree on the relative importance of individual items,
how monies are spent should be a local decision.
With the Country at war and in a recession, with citizens losing their
jobs and businesses under financial strain, everyone has to start
thinking about tightening their belts! This reality was emphasized in an
email sent to several superintendents state-wide recently: our
Superintendent was advised to stop any salary negotiations until after
the Legislature meets in the special session. It further cautioned that,
if salary negotiations were already completed, then they needed to read
the Florida Statute that covers what to do in the event of a financial
urgency requiring modification of an agreement. This is significant
because eighty-two percent of the entire District's budget goes to
salaries.
As mentioned, the special session is scheduled for next week. A recent
forecast of the downward trend in state revenues creating a shortfall of
about $1.3 billion makes this session extremely vital. We won't know the
final effect on our local schools till the end of this section.
**
Several years ago, we reported on Martin County's Stormwater Management
Program, which was then a section of the Public Services Department (now
Engineering Department.) This function required staffing of a total of
35 full-time employees to carry out a project load of $4-5 million per
year over the next ten years. We were critical then that most
neighboring county governments had absorbed this task with far fewer
personnel and were paying a smaller share of their bill with local money
because of their success in obtaining grants. The City of Stuart was the
prime example.
Martin County's program struggled for some months without a top manager
being hired. Performance was less than desired as the department was
neither coordinating well nor consistently with all the local, state and
federal agencies involved in protecting, restoring and enhancing the St.
Lucie River as well as Martin County's overall water resources.
In order to deal effectively with all the agencies involved as well as
to better develop, design, and oversee related capital projects, the
Office of Water Quality was created. Staffing totaled six personnel and
consisted of administrative and technical employees whose manager, the
Water Quality Chief, reports directly to the County Administrator. This
is not to imply that 35 employees have been replaced by six employees.
Those two dozen or so Stormwater Department employees who performed the
routine maintenance of ditches and stormwater systems have reverted to
the Engineering Department where they were originally, whereas the
engineers and project coordinators constitute this group of six.
The operating budget for the Office of Water Quality is $466,000 for the
year 2001-2, which is only 4.4% of the total budget of $10,723,000 for
this group. To accomplish this project load with this level of overhead
would certainly be a measure of success for this department and its
newly hired Chief.
We will keep track of and report progress.