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PETERSBURG-AK The seven-point-six million dollar spending plan eats into reserves to make ends meet but District Finance Director Wendy Einerson, who is retiring, was hopeful about the financial outlook for next year when her replacement, Karen Quitslund will take over. <br />
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&nbsp;&ldquo;This 630 thousand dollars ending fund balance for next year is about 7.2 percent of our expenditures and we have that cap of 10 percent that we&rsquo;re not allowed to go over. This isn&rsquo;t too bad. I mean I&rsquo;m hoping that as the year progresses we&rsquo;ll be able to balance the budget or Karen will be able to next year in my place but I&rsquo;m not feeling to bad about this budget&rdquo; <br />
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That&rsquo;s despite a 40 percent increase in insurance costs and the lack of any long-term increase in state operating funds for k through 12 education from the legislature. The district also budgeted for flat local funding and declining enrollment which means less per-pupil dollars from the state. Superintendent Rob Thomason said it&rsquo;s been a frustrating budget year and he credited Einerson for leaving the school finances in such good shape:<br />
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&ldquo;We were getting new and conflicting information from various sources, i.e., the legislature, the insurance companies and the fact that we were only down 120 thousand is amazing and&hellip;&hellip;..a lot of that is the exactness with which Wendy tracks the budget and provides me with the information I need to make instructional decisions as we move forward because a budget&rsquo;s a plan and a plan is a budget and it&rsquo;s just been a good team&hellip;..we will miss Wendy and as he final budget it&rsquo;s nice to know she&rsquo;s going out with a budget she feels comfortable with and I feel comfortable with it too under the circumstances.&rdquo; <br />
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Even prior to the insurance rate hike, the district had been planning staff reductions, mainly through attrition and retirement. The budget cuts the equivalent of 3.2 teachers and 1.3 instructional aides. The cuts affect staff for counseling, technology, high school English, English as a Second language, reading and the library. As announced earlier this year, the district is also replacing the middle school principal&rsquo;s position with a less-costly dean of students. The current middle-school counselor will cover the high school as welL and the high school counselor is moving to the elementary school. The budget does include a new half-time school nurse position but that&rsquo;s funded by a separate grant for next year only.<br />
The three board members present, Jean Ellis, Sarah Holmgrain, and Randy Lanteigne unanimously passed the spending plan, which is a little more than one percent bigger than this year&rsquo;s budget.
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