After slipping by relatively unaffected by the state’s fiscal crisis the last two years, Nome Public Schools will now be facing what Superintendent Shawn Arnold calls “significant cuts.”
The superintendent says that budget reductions started two or three years ago as state funding steadily decreased. To handle that, Arnold says, budget cuts up until this point have been mostly behind-the-scenes. “We’ve been able to, over the past two or three years, reduce our spending to match that reduction in state funding. But now, we’re to the point that we can’t reduce any further without impacting instruction. And so that’s where we’re looking at other budget reductions, and it may have to come in the form of personnel or program reduction.”
He says that around 75% of Nome Public Schools funding comes from the state. The rest comes from local and federal sources. Arnold also expects federal sources of funding will be reduced after this year with the new presidential administration.
To make up for that, Arnold says that personnel changes most likely will be seen on the hiring side. This coming spring, the school board will still send members to various job fairs around the country.
As of this point, sources of budget reduction are still fluid. Members of the school board are in charge of finalizing the budget and will see a draft of the budget for the first time this year at the end of February. It’s their responsibility to make the final reductions and provide the finished budget to the City of Nome by May 1st.
Along the way, Nome Public Schools will gather community member and staff input about possible places to reduce spending. Arnold says that session meetings with community and staff members will be held to hear about what can be done differently without impacting instruction. “This might mean support personnel, or to reduce days in the year for the time that we work outside of student contact days, but we’re looking at many options (to) reduce our spending and our budget.”
In light of this announcement, a list of Nome Public Schools budget priorities will be released sometime in the next week. While an official date has not been announced, members of the public can expect the first budget-related meeting to be near the end of February.
