St. Louis Public Radio News
(2008-04-08)
ST. LOUIS, MO
(St. Louis Public Radio) -
St. Louis Public School administrators are in the preliminary stages of developing a budget for the 2008/2009 school year.The financial assessment was part of a work session of the Special Advisory Board on Tuesday.
In many respects it's the same chapter of a book district administrators have read time and time again.
The district expects a loss of 3,000 students for next school year, dropping total enrollment to around 27,000, with a further drop to 24,000 by 2010. At the current rate the St. Louis will lose its position as the state's largest school district by 2010.
Faced with those realities District Finance Officer Enos Moss says that further staff reductions and school closing are almost guaranteed.
"Under 60 percent utilization in a school it doesn't make good business sense to keep those schools open," said Moss.
"That's not something that we can do at one time. I feel we probably have 15 or 20 schools that fall under that category."
SAB Board member Richard Gaines claimed that little can be done to improve the district's situation until it finds a way to stop hemorrhaging pupils.
"It cannot be assumed that we can straighten out as an intervening body if we're dealing with the same processes that have been used. There is no reason for us to be here if we're going to do the same thing."
Gaines said the process of cost-cutting and downsizing has been tried in the past.
With fewer pupils, district Revenue for the current fiscal year was 320 million dollars, down 15 million from last year creating a funding gap of close to 25 million dollars.
© Copyright 2012, St. Louis Public Radio
