Superintendent Roger Rathburn talked budget during the Three Rivers Community Schools Board of Education meeting Monday evening.

School funding in general and the local school budget in particular were key facets of the Three Rivers Community Schools Board of Education meeting Monday evening (November 23rd).

Trustees viewed “Facing Michigan’s School Funding Crisis,” a video presentation from the Washtenaw Association of School Boards and the Washtenaw Intermediate School District, and then heard an update from Superintendent Roger Rathburn regarding efforts to deal with a revenue shortfall in the local school district’s current budget.

Budget cuts were at the heart of a day-long board “work/study session” on November 9th that yielded a commitment to meet with labor groups to – in Rathburn’s words – “see where we can find some savings and concessions.”

During Monday night’s meeting, Rathburn said, “We have been meeting.  There’s a small leadership team with representation from every labor group that we have and we have met twice – the last two Thursdays.  I think they’ve been very productive meetings and I think all the individuals participating are positive.  My read on the group is that they would like to work together.”

Rathburn said, “I’m going to be meeting with them next Thursday, but I’m also meeting with the leadership team and a couple of board members.  I think that, in a couple of weeks, I’m going to be reporting back to the board.”

Rathburn noted that the board did not adopt an amended budget during the workshop session and indicated that he’s working now to determine just what the revenue shortfall for the current budget year is.  A deficit of around a million dollars was cited two weeks ago, but he expressed skepticism about that number and concern about the potential for “some errors” associated with it.

Rathburn said, “I don’t want to make the mistake of over-reacting right now and I don’t believe – I could be wrong and this is good news – I don’t believe there exists that million dollar shortfall, but I can’t sit here and tell you without working through that entire budget with my leadership team what that exact number is, but I think I’m going to find something.”

Rathburn noted that a number of decisions about budget cuts were made during the workshop session and said, “Your decisions could change if that figure changes.  It may not change, but I feel very uncomfortable making some decisions that are going to impact some of those personnel and their lives with inaccurate numbers.”

Rathburn said he has invited Board President Susan Schmidtendorff and Trustee Pete Bennett to attend the meeting with his leadership team “just so the board has a feel for the discussions that take place because everybody has different bits and pieces of knowledge with the budget.”

Regarding the process of working with the labor groups to address budget cuts, Rathburn said, “I think the employees and the students will be better off if we address it as a team to select those, and I sense a willingness on their part to work together as a team.”  (Roger_Rathburn audio clip – 1:47)

Rathburn said, “I will be reporting back to you where we sit with the ‘amended’ amended budget, but that will give us better figures to work with to determine which cuts we want to continue to implement.  We’re going to implement some, but we may not need to implement them at the magnitude we thought we were going to.”

Schmidtendorff noted that she has been approached by several citizens regarding the budget situation and said, “They’re hopeful and encouraged because they see a different reaction in this district than they’re seeing in other districts.  They are applauding us for working together.”

The board’s next meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Monday, December 14th.

To access the video presentation, “Facing Michigan’s School Funding Crisis,” click here.