Sean C. Morgan
The District 55 School Board approved an agreement with employees to cut four days from the 2011-12 school year during its regular meeting Monday night.
The unpaid furlough days will be Nov. 23, Feb. 17, June 14 and June 15.
The district saves approx-imately $60,000 for each furlough day.
The district’s budget, approved last month, was built without furlough days. The board negotiated with the teachers, classified and administrative employees to implement four furlough days to help bolster the dwindling ending fund balance – cash carried over from year to year. The ending fund balance serves as the district’s contingency fund.
The district budget included an ending fund balance of nearly $150,000, about 1 percent of the general fund. District officials and the board plan to use the savings from the furlough days and other sources to get near 3 percent.
Present at the meeting were board members Billie Weber, Chanz Keeney, Mike Reynolds, David VanDerlip, Kevin Burger and via telephone, Mike E. Adams. Jenny Daniels was absent.
Adams and Burger joined the board, while Leena Neuschwander and John Fassler ended their terms last month.
In other business, the board:
n Appointed Redick to his second year as chairman and retained Dale Keen as vice chairman and Mike Reynolds as secretary.
n Accepted the retirement of Judy Taylor, business manager’s secretary, effective Aug. 1 and hired her back through June 30.
n Declared a 1980 Ford cube van surplus.
n Accepted a $500 donation to repair the Booster Club Snack Shack from Moose Creek Machine and Repairs.
n Received a budget update from Business Manager Kevin Strong showing the district had saved $476,000 in its 2010-11 budget.
The largest savings were $98,000 for “other instructional, professional and technical.” The district hired a behavior consultant in 2009-10 from the Linn-Benton-Lincoln Education Service District. In 2010-11, the district reduced the number of days for this position and used ESD funds to help pay for it, expending only 31.7 percent of the total amount budgeted for the position.
Overall, the district spent 91.3 percent of its budgeted funds in 2010-11.