Teachers hit with effects of Budget Shortfall

After being reported last year, Westside’s budget shortfall has come. Since the Westside district’s property valuation dropped 1.65 percent for the 2014 fiscal year, Westside had to take a $3 million dollar cut in the budget. Although the $79.9 million dollar bond issue passed last May, that goes only towards building maintenance. Since the budget took a big hit, teachers have been directly impacted this year.

One of the biggest departments to be affected is English. Two teachers have taken a leave of absence this year, with neither being replaced. This has caused English teachers to take on more students and create bigger sections, some as big as 28 students. According to English department head Stephanie Pueppka, teachers have had to cut away some of their normal methods.

“We talked especially with comp, was an example of a class we knew was going to have a lot more kids in there,” Pueppka said. “[…] You’re going to have to think about smarter ways to approach not only your lessons, but you might have to let go of doing a grading conference because you just don’t have the time to do it. I think it’s hard for them because they know what the best practices are for instruction.”

Not only are their teachers needing to be replaced, but department budgets are smaller across the board this year. Things become harder to fund, but Principal Maryanne Ricketts is confident in the department heads.

“We all need to be careful when spending money from department funds-we need to stay in the budget guidelines,” Ricketts said. “Typically the department heads do a great job with their budgets. Teachers do a good job looking for outside resources to help fund projects.”

While the department heads have been able to manage their budgets, another unforeseen problem has arised, enrollment.

“We enrolled more students this summer and when school started than we anticipated, so that adds stress because the number of sections do become larger and we are not able to add more teachers,” Ricketts said.

On top of being short on teachers, Westside also enrolled more students than expected, according to Ricketts. This only added more stress to the current situation.

On Monday, though, the district approved a new tax levy. The levy will add on a little extra money to property taxes for residents in the Westside district. While the levy wasn’t passed in response to the shortfall, it will still help raise money for the district.

“This year’s total levy is $1.307925 compared to last year’s total of $1.274309,” District Chief Financial Officer Bob Zagozda said. “Our portion of the levy should raise $11.7 million this coming year. Two years ago, our total levy was $1.34 compared to this year’s total levy of $1.31 (rounded), so although it went up from last year, it is still lower than it was two years ago.”