School Board President Explains Vote to approve $50 Million Operating Budget

This morning we received responses from three school board members explaining their vote on the District’s $50 million 2011-12 budget Draft #1.

Yesterday, THE FRANKLIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL reported the Board’s action to approve the budget during its June15 Special Meeting.

Board members Jeff Traylor, Judith Bialk and Tim Nielson have yet to respond.  Board member Linda Witkowski was excused from the Jun 15 meeting and didn’t vote on the budget and therefore was not contacted by the editors.

The following explanation came from School Board President, Debbie Larson.

Mr. Keller,

The graph that you are referring to on page 4 shows the deficits that the District would have faced had it not made reductions in expenditures or added revenue in the five previous budget years indicated. It has nothing to do with the 2011-12 budget. In each of those previous years the District reduced expenditures and added revenue as it indicates on pages 5, 6, and 7. Looking at the five years in total, the District added $1,237,097 in revenue and reduced expenditures by $4,332,201 to make sure that the budget was balanced. These two amounts total $5,569,298, which was rounded to $5.6 million, or the total amount of the projected deficits. All of these pages in the budget presentation deal with past budgets and not the 2011-12 budget. I voted for the 2011-12 budget because it maintains excellent educational programs for the students of the Franklin Public Schools and it reduces property taxes.

Sincerely,

Debra M. Larson

Franklin Board of Education-President

We received this explaination from school board member Melissa Klein.

Mr. Keller,

Thank you for contacting me for clarification regarding the budget that was approved last night. The $5.6 million deficit that I believe that you are referring to is what the cumulative (since the 2003-2004 school year) budget deficit would have been had the district not made $4.3 million in cuts and also added $1.2 million in revenue during the same time period (this is detailed in pages 5-7 of the budget document). Last week the district's business director, Jim Milzer, and I discussed changing the title of the graph on page 4 to make it more clear in future versions of the budget. I apologize for any confusion that this may have caused.

I voted in favor of this budget because it is balanced, it reduces the tax levy and tax levy rates, and also because it does not cut current programs or services for our students. I am very thankful that, due to past sound fiscal decisions, we are able to maintain class sizes and programming for the coming school year, unlike many of our surrounding school districts who will be required to make significant cuts to balance their budgets.

Please don't hesitate to contact me in the future if you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

Melissa Klein

Here is school board member Janet Evans’ response.

Dear Mr. Keller,

Thank you for inquiring as to my reason(s) for voting NO in the adoption of the Franklin Public Schools 2011-12 Preliminary Budget at our Special Board meeting June 15, 2011.  As you are aware, the Board originally voted 3-3 on the budget on June 8th.  The budget presented on the 15th did not contain any changes from the June 8th budget.

My reasons for voting NO on the 8th and the 15th were due to what I view as a lack of transparency in the budget and the budgeting for a 2.68% wage increase.  Also, after listening to Board member requests at both meetings to revisit the budget in July for the purpose of making possible adjustments (rather than waiting until October as listed in our Budget timeline) I am not confident a look at the budget in July will see any changes come to fruition.  The responses during the discussions at both meetings were peppered with the words, “not enough time.”

I will thoroughly weigh all activity between July through the final adoption of the budget in October before I cast my vote.  While I acknowledge the budget does not raise property taxes (as mandated by the Budget Repair Bill/Act 10) and the budget is balanced, I believe there is still room for improvement in the budget.

Regards,

Janet Evans

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