Wednesday, Jul. 23, 2008
Work session, meeting yields information on budget, stadium
By Melissa Winn
mwinn@star-telegram.com
It’s all about perspective as the Weatherford Independent School District Board of Trustees learned Thursday night.
Prior to the regular monthly meeting, Randy Burks, assistant superintendent for business and operations, informed board members of a $150,000 deficit in the 2008-09 preliminary budget at a work session.
"There are no multipliers for inflationary costs," Dr. Burks explained.
But Superintendent Deborah Cron offered that a $52 million budget having only a $150,000 shortfall is minimal as compared to other districts.
"Some districts are a lot higher than that so it could be a lot worse," Dr. Cron said.
Included in the 2008-09 dollars is a 1 percent teacher’s salary increase as well as a 3 percent increase for support staff.
Secretary Paul Paschall expressed his concern about increasing teaching salaries by such a small amount. He said he felt as if Weatherford may lose competitiveness with other area schools.
Deputy Superintendent Holly Teague responded by saying that while other schools may offer more money, they are also raising the ratio of students to teachers.
"Of course it’s not what we want," she said about the 1 percent. "We’ve tried to keep class sizes low because when we talk to teachers, that’s what they want."
Because of House Bill 1, funds that WISD receives from the state are frozen at $5,080 per student. This restriction, Cron said, makes it difficult for districts to run efficiently without having to make major decisions on what and where to cut.
"The cost of educating kids isn’t getting cheaper and the legislature isn’t acknowledging that cost," she said. "It does take money — people take money — and I don’t think we need to apologize for that."
Following the work session, board members received an update on Kangaroo Stadium renovations. VLK Architects’ Richard Jaynes said the turf installation was almost finished and that his firm was requesting a zoning change from the City as "some things [they want to do in Phase 2] may not be allowed" under current zoning regulations.
After watching a three minute, virtual walk-through of the completed stadium, Charlie Martinez said he was "excited."
"This is just as impressive as the high school," he said.
The video may be seen on the WISD Web site ( www.weatherfordisd.com).
For more on the stadium, see Sports, page 4B.
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