Easy to second guess schools on budget crisis

School board members faced hard choices last week when they went through the budget looking for $2.8 million in cuts.

Cuts to personnel were clearly the most important to those folks in the dock, but the lion's share of the cuts came from nonemployee related reductions.

That field trips costing $72,000 and nonleague athletic trips costing $100,000 survived the cuts shouldn't have been a surprise. Unlike the personnel cuts, anything involving transportation involves transportation subsidies. That means if you don't spend the money, you don't get the 80 percent reimbursement down the road.

Cutting both items would result in a savings next year, because the district would receive a reimbursement for this year's trips. But that well is dry afterwards and would not save a single janitor's job.

The real surprise was the number of teachers to be cut due to decreased enrollment. Should the number of students continue to drop, we could soon be looking at closing another school.

The decrease has brought the district down to 1996 population numbers. Unfortunately, the amount of money it costs to employ a person has increased substantially since 1996.

That's a combination that is going to increase the pain for the school district.

It's easy to second guess for those of us who are not on the hook for making decisions about the school budget. But, unless the economy turns around in a hurry, we'll be doing it all over again, and there might not be as many survivors then.