DOCUMENT RESUME RC 022 766 ED 448 975 Salinas, Claudio AUTHOR A Small District's Quest for Survival. TITLE 2000-00-00 PUB DATE NOTE 17p. Reports - Descriptive (141) PUB TYPE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Community Support; Elementary Secondary Education; DESCRIPTORS *Financial Exigency; Mergers; Reduction in Force; Rural Schools; *School District Size; School District Wealth; *State Action; *State School District Relationship *School District Dissolution; Small School Districts; *Texas IDENTIFIERS _ABSTRACT In Texas, a financially troubled school district must submit a plan of action to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for improving its financial situation without harming the quality of education delivered. If things get worse, TEA assigns a financial monitor to advise the district on overcoming its financial problems and to determine if further sanctions are necessary. If financial conditions continue to worsen, TEA sends a Master, who has authority to overrule the superintendent and the board. District options for bringing costs under control include reducing personnel; contracting out for transportation, food, and custodial services; increasing efforts to collect taxes or recover delinquent taxes; raising the tax rate; and increasing the average daily attendance, the main factor in determining state aid levels. In extreme cases, the district may opt to divest itself of high school or all secondary grade levels. Nearby wealthy districts can be solicited to purchase weighted average daily attendance or to consolidate tax bases with the struggling district. If there are no wealthy districts nearby, help cannot be solicited. Voluntary consolidation or annexation can be accomplished with approval from voters in both districts. Districts in grave financial condition will be dissolved and ordered to be annexed to an adjoining district. In either consolidation or annexation, the receiving district receives special funds to assist in the handling of the inherited deficit. This paper recounts a small district's journey through this process to forced annexation and gives recommendations to districts in similar circumstances. (TD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. A Small District's Quest for Survival by Claudio Salinas U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 79 of Educational Research and Improvement Offic "PERMISSION TO ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION ED REPRODUCE THIS CENTER (ERIC) MAT IAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES official OERI position or policy. INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." BEST COPY AVAILABLE A SMALL DISTRICT'S QUEST FOR SURVIVAL Introduction In Texas, there are 1,185 public school districts at the beginning of the 2000-2001 school- Most of these are small and rural school districts. Life in a small community is year. something treasured by many people. They enjoy living in small communities, particularly rural, for a variety of reasons. Among these are: enjoyment of a quality of life they cannot find in large cities; enjoyment of a different pace of living; a desire to live where their families have been raised for generations; a desire to raise their children in a place where they feel safe because they know virtually everyone; and living in a place where they may be able to buy a larger house and more land than in the large cities. These communities identify themselves through their public schools and cherish local control of their schools to keep their communities' character and vitality in good standing. One of the greatest challenges that small school districts face is that of having an appropriate tax base of support to stay in operation. Even though these communities may have residential houses and some retail businesses, the bulk of their tax base is apt to be driven by an agricultural or an oil and gas economy. If that economic vitality wanes, then communities may see a decline in population and the number of retail businesses that stay open. The decline of economic vitality may cause financial difficulties for the school to districts. N. cNi CNI 4=0 Every year a small number of the public school districts in Texas experience financial difficulties of a magnitude that forces them to declare a state of financial exigency. The resulting effect too many times creates a state of affairs in which money has to be borrowed from a lending institution to cover a budget in deficit, as well as severe cuts in operating costs. Most such districts manage to pull themselves out through a deficit reduction plan that allows them to continue to operate. The following article relates to my experience as an interim superintendent of a small school district in such a predicament. First, a background is given regarding options usually taken by districts in similar initial circumstances. This is followed by a description of the struggle the district underwent. A concluding statement is provided at the end incorporating my reflections and recommendations for schools in similar circumstances. Background The purpose of a deficit reduction plan is for the troubled district to submit a plan of action to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for turning its financial situation around. As with any other district plan that affects significant change, TEA expects that the citizens of the district be kept informed and be called upon to participate in the development of the plan. The plan itself is to focus on maximizing revenues coming into the district and reducing operating costs to the most efficient point possible. All of this must be done without significantly adversely affecting the quality of education of the students. 4 At some point when a district gets into a serious financial crisis, TEA will assign a financial monitor to the district. The monitor is there to determine if further sanctions are necessary and to advise the district on how to overcome its financial problems. The district is responsible for how its decisions and actions impact the financial well-being of the district. And when financial conditions worsen, TEA will send a Master. Masters are sent with the authority to overrule the superintendent and the board. The actions that a school district can take to bring costs under control are somewhat limited. Most actions call for an extra dose of political courage. Since roughly 80% of a school district's budget is dedicated to personnel salaries and related personnel expenses, a reduction-in-force (RIF) tends to have a significant impact on reducing operating costs. Other major actions that may reduce costs are, for example, contracting out for transportation services, food services, and custodial services. Furthermore, a district may want to increase its efforts to collect taxes, the recovery rate of delinquent tax collections, the average-daily-attendance (ADA) of its students, and consider raising the tax rate. The ADA is the main factor which determines the amount of State aid the district receives annually. State guidelines for raising tax rates have to be observed. In extreme situations, especially in the smaller school districts, the district may want to divest itself of either the high school grade levels or all secondary grade levels (as per provisions in Chapter 41, subchapter E, of the Texas Education Code, 1998). Such action may allow the district to bring costs under control, while preserving a measure of community identity through the remaining grade levels. 5 In the midst of reducing costs and reorganizing priorities, these districts may need to borrow money from a lending institution to make payroll and cover other operating expenses for the fiscal year. Consequently, the interest owed on the loan is factored in as well. In addition, litigation costs are factored in for legal challenges to the RIF. Both TEA and the lending institutions examine carefully the financial outlook of the district, if support is to be forthcoming. A poor track record of financial stability, coupled with a bleak outlook, may dictate that the days of existence for that district are numbered. The Texas Education Code (1998) allows wealthy districts seeking to equalize their wealth to purchase weighted average daily attendance (WADA) or to agree to consolidate tax bases with another district. If there are no truly wealthy districts close to a district that is struggling, help cannot be solicited. If wealthy districts in other parts of the state choose to equalize their wealth by returning the excess funds to the State, then the struggling district is unable to benefit from these options. Chapter 13 of the Education Code (1998) allows for two more options similar to those afforded to wealthy districts under Chapter 41. They are consolidation and annexation. Both of these options are available, if the struggling district acts on time. Both options can be voluntary acts on the part of the districts wishing to join together. They have to seek and win approval from their voters to carry out the consolidation or annexation (TEA, 1998). If the voters of just one district refuse the consolidation or annexation proposal, then the issue is mute. However, if it seems that both sides are in favor, then there is also room for mediation. Mediation is a means by which both sides meet to arrive at concessions. Some items that can be brought to mediation are, for example, the 6 number of campuses that are to stay open, the number of teachers to be retained, names to continue for sports teams, and so on. Concessions can best be won when the district in financial trouble still has some bargaining power. When financial conditions are severe and time runs out, so does the bargaining power. The Texas Education Code, teacher contract renewal deadlines, and financial conditions dictate the time factor to be used to act on consolidation. Districts in grave financial condition for whom time and options have run out will receive an Order of Annexation from the Commissioner of Education. The troubled district is dissolved and forced to become part of an adjoining school district in the same county by July 1 of that calendar year. A period of transition begins to take place after the order is issued, during which time student records and financial accounts are to be shared with the receiving district. In either consolidation or annexation, the receiving school district receives special funds to assist in the handling of the inherited deficit once the transition takes place (TEA, 1998). The Struggle The struggle described here relates to a district that was in severe financial conditions. With this background in mind, recollections begin in late summer of 1998 when the superintendent reported to those present that the awaited loan had just been approved. This was a loan to help meet payroll for August. Shortly afterwards, the financial mission for the district was to be as frugal as possible. The idea of adding more austerity to already tight campus budgets was received with skepticism by some teachers at in-service time in August. The teachers had been living with this kind of a situation for so long that it had become normal to them. A few teachers remarked that they had been through similar monetary crises before, but that things had always worked out. And so frugality was the word. Almost all workshop travel was brought to a halt. Even meals for the sports teams' away games were severely curtailed. When several requests for workshop travel were turned down and when teachers saw that even meals for out of town football games were affected, it was then that they began to feel the gravity of the financial situation. Nevertheless, it soon became evident that for every dollar saved, a dollar or more had to be spent on building and equipment repairs and copy machines that periodically broke down. However, the extreme frugality measures, plus the vigorous delinquent tax collection efforts by the new district tax attorneys, did help stretch the available revenues through February 1999. In October, a report was presented to the district's board of trustees, by the financial monitor assigned to the district, in which he presented his case for the district to seek consolidation with the neighboring district (Bolton, 1998). This report, which by and large went unpublicized, contained the background of the situation at hand and is In March 1996 TEA conducted an investigation of the financial paraphrased here. condition of the district and found a financial crisis, as indicated by a lack of sufficient funds to cover payroll obligations through August 31, 1996. This resulted from the 8 district: Attempting to be the local source of jobs for as many people in the community 1. as possible; 2. Lowering the tax rate during one of the base years for determining the guaranteed yield amount, thus reducing state revenue to the district in subsequent years, and 3. Not taking into account overpayments from the and spending the state overpayment amounts, resulting in reductions in state funds during the following years. (Bolton, 1998) These actions prompted TEA to lower the district's accreditation status to unacceptable and assigned a financial monitor to the district. The monitor was assigned to conduct a full assessment of the district's financial condition, determine if any further sanctions were necessary, and assist in overcoming the deficit. The report also chronicled a historical financial sketch of the district from 1996 to 1998. In each of these years, the district continued to spend overpayments from the state it had not earned. In each of these years, the district continued with a deficit budget status and had to borrow money to pay teachers and cover operating costs. With the exception of one year, the deficit fund balance increased annually. Lawsuits also came into the picture due to challenged terminations and settlements were costly. In addition, the report indicated that enrollment in the district was on a gradual decline, thus removing average daily attendance as a significant factor that could help reduce the general fund balance deficit. Moreover, as large sums of money had to be borrowed each year to keep the district in operation, the portion of the district's revenue that had to be 9 dedicated to paying off the previous year's debts increased each year. Because of the limited resources, maintenance of facilities and equipment had to be deferred, and many items were found to be in need of repair. Foremost of the devastating factors mentioned was the reluctance of the district's depository bank to lend large sums of money to the district without secured debt. TEA had been assisting the district by ensuring that some of the year's state funding would be advanced in September in time to make the necessary payments on previous loans. Refusal of a loan or an advancement would mean payroll could not be met. In late November of 1998, TEA officials came to visit with the board at a public meeting. While underscoring the seriousness of the district's financial condition, TEA emphasized the importance of the district reaching a decision of options to effectively address financial problems. The options as outlined by TEA were: 1. No changes. Continue with current operating policies and procedures. (This could cause the district to cease operations during the year); Borrow money in order to keep the school operating ; 2. Implement a reduction-in-force (RIF) program consistent with board policy; 3. Contract out for certain services (e.g., transportation, food service, maintenance, 4. etc.) 5. Become a K-6 district; or Consolidate. 6. 10