SCHOOLS IN CAIRO FACE FINANICAL CRUNCH

CAIRO, Ill. -- The Cairo Board of Education is seeking ways to reduce the district's budget by $1 million next year.

Schools Superintendent Robert Isom said the district is nearly broke, since most of its reserve balances were used several years ago when a deficit-spending pattern began. The district is included on a financial watch list monitored by state education officials for districts whose reserves slip lower than 10 percent of its annual budget.

"We're essentially living paycheck to paycheck," said Isom. "We're not bankrupt, but we do have serious cashflow problems during the year."

Isom blames several major problems for the district's financial difficulties. Topping the list is a lack of local revenue, despite the fact the district's tax levy of $4.85 per $100 assessed valuation is nearly 50 cents more than like districts throughout the state.

Isom doesn't fault Cairo residents, who he said are "heavily-taxed as it is." The problem is an educational funding formula that penalizes Southern Illinois school districts because they have few commercial businesses and little industry to bolster the local tax base.

"We're required to make a local effort," Isom said. "Unfortunately, a lot of it depends on the overall property values in your district. Our property values are not high enough, and even with our higher levy, it does not produce as much as we need."

Another problem stressing the district's finances are staff salaries. Salaries comprise better than 80 percent of the district's $7.5 million annual budget, and officials must negotiate contracts with four separate unions representing certified employees (teachers), secretaries, custodians and teacher's aides.

In addition, most of the 70-plus teachers have spent their careers in the district and earn well above the starting teacher salary of $22,748. Isom said school board officials have already reduced the budget by some $250,000 next year by laying off 10 teacher's aides and one teacher, and by choosing not to fill three teaching positions vacated by teachers leaving the district.

"Our student-teacher ratio will climb to 19 to 1 instead of 16 to 1, but other than that we should be okay," he said. "We really need about another $700,000 in reductions, but it's important that we start the process."

The district's four schools are aging and in poor repair, which means the district has high maintenance costs. The school board is eyeing the possibility of closing a building to reduce maintenance, but none of the buildings is large enough to accommodate a large block of additional students.

"The long-term solution would be to build another building or create an educational park," Isom said. "It gets to the point that either you repair the buildings or you close them."

Isom said the school board will have to nickel-and-dime the remainder of reductions from the budget. A freeze on all spending will probably be necessary, and there will likely be more cuts in programs, staff and maintenance projects. However, the school board must remember that too many cuts could result in diminished programming, Isom said.

"Your programs are what eat up a lot of your funding, but you can't diminish the qualify of education those kids receive or they'll go somewhere else," he said. "You have to find some way to trim it down but keep the quality high."