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Menominee Bond Shot Down at a rate of 6 to 4
Topic Started: May 20 2012, 09:40 PM (685 Views)
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The schools exist to educate, not employ.
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District faces cuts, closures

Menominee officials paint a dreary picture

5/16/2012 12:00:00 AM

MENOMINEE - The Menominee Area Public School District is broke and now it's up to the administration and school board to decide what difficult cuts will take place.

Had the May 8 Bond Proposal passed (voters shot it down at a rate of 6 to 4) the serious problems the district faces would not have been abated, however, they would have been greatly diminished.

As it stands now, drastic cuts and reductions loom large. And there is simply no way around them. The school system is broke - flat broke.

So what now?

School closures, teacher terminations, bussing cuts, athletics cuts, non-athletic extracurricular cuts - you name it. Literally everything is on the table. That fact was confirmed by Menominee Superintendent Erik Bergh and the MAPS Board of Education Tuesday morning in the district office at Blesch Intermediate School.

For starters - the Menominee Area Public district will be closing at least one school building very soon. Either Lincoln Elementary or Central Elementary will be shut down. Why? There is simply no financial alternative.

And the savings gained by closing one of those two buildings will have but a tiny impact on the district's overall financial woes.

No matter how you slice it, the district, the school board and the schools' administrators will face extremely tough decisions in the months to come.

"Our annual budgets have been in deficit for the last eight years," explained Bergh at the start of the meeting.

He followed up, by asking the board, "Are we all in agreement that the Menominee Area Public Schools will not operate in the red?"

At that point, board member Ken Pulver jumped in, to clarify.

"We have been operating in the red. For the last six years or so we whittled down the (district's) $4 million balance - and now we no longer have that cushion to spend in the red ..." Pulver said.

"(Budget cuts) could possibly shrink the geographic size of the district, could shrink the population size as well ... are we ready to resolve, or continue to resolve, that we're going to fall into that deficit district size situation?" Bergh asked.

"We're at zero balance," confirmed board member Jay Thomas. "The challenge is, the things proposed in the bond, had it gone through, would have helped to alleviate some of the more difficult decisions that we'll have to make."

Thomas added that the bond issue wouldn't have solved all of the district's problems.

However, one thing the bond issue would have done - it would have allocated the approximately $250,000 needed to replace the antiquated, obsolete fire alarm system at the high school - a system that must be replaced this summer, the superintendent explained.

As the bond proposal was defeated, those dollars will now have to come somewhere else.

"We need to get some updated information - as much information as we can," Bergh said, adding, decisions on transportation, athletics and negotiations will be crucial in crafting next year's budget.

However, another bond initiative could be placed on the November ballot, but the district would need to meet a treasury date of late July or early August, meaning its plan would need to be solidified before going to treasury, probably by early to mid-July, Bergh explained.

Another option, a February vote.

"If we were to put an issue on the February ballot, we have to be at treasury in late October to early-November," Bergh said, adding "Another issue that's looming within the next year is the operational millage renewal."

Regardless, of the bond issue, the economics of the district dictate that either Central or Lincoln elementary school will need be shut down, Pulver explained.

"As we're going through this year's budget, we're looking at projections for next year's budget, and how this year's expenses inform next year's budget - and the last number I saw, preliminarily, for next year's budget is a deficit of between $1.4 and $1.5 (million)," Bergh said, adding that figure does not include the quarter-million dollar cost to replace the high school's fire alarm system.

"So that number is climbing," he said. "We potentially could be looking at between a million and a half and two million (dollars)."

"A decision has got to be made," said Thomas. "I mean, I don't know why we're asking questions - we've got to figure it out and execute.

"I think nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news - but we're a million and a half to two million (deficit). I mean last year, we chopped us down to nothing, so that's the position we're in. We've got to come up with ... and all of those difficult decisions we held off on, only executed on a few of them - there's major change that's going to happen in this next year."

Pulver admitted that it's still not outside of the realm of possibility that both Lincoln and Central could be closed.

Asked after the meeting of the implications of the cuts, Bergh explained that everything in the near future "is going to be a challenge," and the district would have to emphasize its core purpose - providing Menominee's students with a quality education.

As for where the inevitable cuts will come, board member Marye Mathieu said "Everything is going to be on the table."

Bergh agreed, saying "We have to consider everything."

"Layoffs, bussing, closing buildings ..." all are fair game when it comes down to balancing the budget, Mathieu explained.
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