Claremore schools to freeze spending amid budget cuts

Reprinted with permission from the Claremore Progress. This article originally appeared on Jun 21, 2016. Support local journalism with a subscription or a day pass for $1.99 :)

Education funding cuts for the current fiscal year totaling $47.6 million were approved unanimously at an Oklahoma State Board of Education special meeting Thursday afternoon.

At Claremore Public Schools, the cuts will mean a spending freeze for the district.

“It is a very dire situation,” said Claremore Public Schools Superintendent Michael McClaren. “Unless there is a legislative remedy this session, we are looking at more significant cuts for the upcoming year. We reduced our budget as much as we can. We are going to freeze all spending except things essential for operation.”

McClaren said the school board would be discussing potential cuts and different scenarios over the next few months.

The cuts mean nearly $800,000 less for Claremore Public Schools support activities, such as early childhood initiatives, alternative education, remediation, AP teacher training, teacher residency programs, Sooner Start, Teach for America, and staff development.

Schools like Claremore will be depending more heavily on their fund balances and carry-over funds during the spring semester. Those are funds that help support the school during the first two months of every school year in the fall before state appropriations are distributed. As those funds are reduced, it weakens the school’s ability to continue to operate despite the severe budget cuts.

Claremore Public Schools will not be able to purchase items such as new technology, classroom and art supplies, or books for the library. McClaren said the school plans on cutting paper consumption in half and if nothing changes in the upcoming legislative session, the district will be required to begin reducing personnel, which means bigger classrooms.

Each school district will be faced with a different percentage of cuts based on a per-student formula, which considers variables such as access to ad valorem taxes, local support, federal support and state appropriations. The cuts approved on Thursday affect only state appropriations.

“There will be a variety of programs that are important and good that will be affected by this,” said Joy Hofmeister, Oklahoma State Superintendent, in the Oklahoma State Board of Education special meeting. “We know tough choices have to be made and it is our goal to soften the blow to kids.”

Hofmeister described the financial situation of Oklahoma schools as somber. She said the impact could leave some districts struggling to stay open.

Now, schools are preparing for a revenue failure in the 1017 Fund, also known as the Education Reform Revolving Fund. A revenue failure would result in more cuts to education this spring, and the Oklahoma State Board of Education would have less ability to protect students and the classroom from a direct impact from the budget cuts.

The Oklahoma State Board of Education chose to have a steeper cut to the Public School Activity Fund, instead of an across the board cut, because they said it would provide schools with the most flexibility to decide how to handle the budget cuts.

“In hard times we have to make hard decisions,” said Claremore Mayor Bill Flanagan, who serves on the Oklahoma State Board of Education. “We want to give as much flexibility as possible. It is not ‘one solution fits everybody.’”

Flanagan said the board is also looking for ways to reduce the amount of money earmarked for testing in an effort to send more money through the formula and into the classroom. Schools will be notified about budgets cuts, if any, to the 1017 Fund in February. Currently the only proposals submitted to help schools in their current crisis is a one-cent sales tax proposed by David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma.