CLARA CITY -- The MACCRAY School Board voted on Monday to cut $230,000 from its budget for the coming school year.
The district plans to switch to a four-day school week in the fall, hoping to save money in fuel and utilities. The cuts also include laying off or reassigning seven teachers and reducing the spending for staff training.
The state Legislature approved sending an additional $51 per student to the state's public schools, which will give MACCRAY about $36,000, said Superintendent Greg Schmidt. School districts are allowed to shift another $51 per student from their capital projects budget.
"It'll help us, it'll help everybody, but we needed to make these decisions last night," Schmidt said. "I don't know if we'll do the shift; we'll have to see if it makes sense for us."
MACCRAY is always behind in maintenance projects and may not be able to afford to shift money out of that fund, he said.
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Schmidt described the board meeting on Monday as "pretty somber." No one wanted to make the motions to lay off long-term employees, he said.
The district is reassigning four teachers and laying off three. Custodians will lose one hour of overtime per week.
The full-time teacher in the Area Learning Program and a half-time fifth-grade teacher will be laid off. A full-time instrumental music teacher will be offered a half-time contract next year.
The Area Learning Program will continue with two staff members each reassigned to work in the program half time.
The district expects to boost revenue by selling Spanish classes taught by Interactive TV to other school districts. The income is expected to be about $26,000.
Despite the new funding from the state, Schmidt said, he recommended that the board make the cuts the administrative team had proposed. The School Board will need to find ways to downsize each year to adjust to declining enrollment, he said.
This year's cuts make up about 3 percent of the budget, Schmidt said. A year ago, the board voted to cut $800,000, about 11 percent of the budget.
Schmidt said the district still needs state permission to use a four-day school week, and he is preparing the proposal to send to the state Department of Education. It will include the proposed school calendar and a spread sheet accounting for all the staff time and instructional time for the school year.
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Area legislators are also writing letters supporting the move.
The district is close to completing a purchase agreement to sell the junior high building in Clara City, which was closed last year. A Burnsville company will buy the building for $1 and set up a call center and document storage facility in the building, he said. The district will still lease a portion of the building at a fixed cost of $9,000 a year.
Schmidt said utilities for the building were much more than that for the past year.
