A target on their backs

Two laws are adversely impacting the Mountain Home School District.

The first is the Law of Unintended Consequences and the second is Murphy's Law. They tend to go hand in hand.

A perfect storm of disasters have hit the school district.

Over the last ten years, enrollment has consistently declined, in part due to changing demographics at the airbase where there are younger personnel than there were during the mid-'90s and consequently fewer school-age children. Most of the district's funding comes from a state formula based on how many students are sitting at a desk each day.

The state removed the local district's ability to raise property taxes for general fund operations, promising to make up the difference from an increase in sales taxes. But sales taxes are tied to the economy, which has collapsed, and the legislature, while mandating additional programs and higher standards, hasn't been keeping up with even inflation in providing support for local schools. Federal money also has been cut in the last five years. Politicians may stress how important education is, but they haven't been putting the money where their mouths are. Between holdbacks and cutbacks, the amount of money available to local school districts isn't keeping pace with the needs of school districts. Put more directly, it isn't keeping pace with the needs of the students as the district tries to prepare them for a much more complicated world than the one we grew up in.

The local school district wasn't one of those that had a lot of pork in its budget to begin with. It has always been fiscally responsible. That meant when state funding began to fall behind needs several years ago, the district was forced to make tougher and tougher cuts in its programs.

Before he became superintendent, Tim McMurtrey led the effort to create the highly successful middle school team-teaching program for the district. Since he's been superintendent he's overseen the total dismantlement of that program.

He didn't have a lot of choice. Extra opportunities for students usually require extra money. In the last few years, the district has pulled back to just the basics. Class sizes have gone up. Electives available to students to enrich their education have gone down. There is no fat, or even muscle left. Further cuts are going deep into bone and marrow.

The district's problems have not been a product of financial mismanagement. It's been the result of factors completely out of their control.

One temporary solution to the current financial crisis is to seek a one-time-only emergency levy that would at least let the district get out of the red. It would have to formally declare a financial emergency to do that.

But taxpayers are mad right now about that extra tax bill they're getting from the county -- the product of a mistake by the state. The school district had nothing to do with that mistake, and technically, wasn't directly affected since it only applied to taxes for the city budget.

But taxpayers are angry, nevertheless, and that means the chances the district will win voter approval for a small additional tax are slim at best. Murphy's Law and the Law of Unintended consequences will come into play here. The city is going to get the money it's supposed to get, due to the supplemental tax bill, so in the long run it won't get hurt. It's the school district that will wind up paying the price. It's like a person watching a train wreck only to realize a loose caboose is headed straight for them.

I think the route the district should try first, however, is to ask the voters for the special levy. But if it fails, and I think it will, there really is only one other option left, and that's to reopen and modify the master contract with the teachers.

Which is why teachers these days are walking around feeling like they have a target on their backs.

They've worked with the district to help make the cuts. They've seen a lot of their classroom support go away. They're dipping even more than in the past into their own pocketbooks to help pay for simple things like classroom supplies. They're trying to maintain quality standards even as their classrooms become more and more crowded with students.

That's why the teachers' union doesn't want the district to rush into a declaration of financial emergency. They know, if it happens, who is going to pay the price.

Over the years, the union has, as it is supposed to do, fought for improvements in teacher salaries and benefits. It's been reasonably successful. Although it has sometimes disagreed with the school district on how much money is available for teachers, its demands haven't been totally off the wall. The teachers have recognized the financial limitations imposed on the district and the union negotiators have tried to work within those limitations.

No such negotiations are ever going to be perfect, but since the district administration respects and is proud of the staff it has assembled, there's been a noticeable lack of bloodletting over the teacher contracts. The district has given what it could and the teachers haven't asked for a great deal more.

Teacher salaries aren't great -- no teacher is going to be competing with a Wall Street CEO to bid for a luxury yacht -- but they're not terrible, either. They're about average for what people in this area make -- enough to live on, not enough to get rich.

But they can see what's coming. Eventually, if the other average citizens of this community don't back the special levy, they're going to be taking cuts in benefits and pay. In effect, a no vote on the levy means you don't mind seeing someone else get their pay cut.

If the levy passes, the teachers, like everybody else, will see a small increase in their tax bill. But it would be spread out over several thousand taxpayers. If it fails, only a couple hundred people -- the teachers -- are going to make up the shortfall, which doesn't seem fair.

And that would come on top of a proposal by state Superintendent of Education Tom Luna, who is presenting a budget before the legislature that calls on teachers to absorb much of a possible $135 million loss in overall funding for Idaho's K-12 system in the next fiscal year, including a nearly 6 percent reduction in salaries and state-paid benefits.

For those of us who've managed to keep our jobs in the Great Recession, none of us would want to face a pay cut, or a cut in benefits that would force us to make up the difference out of our pockets. Things are just too tight. Our personal budgets just can't take too many hits. But that's what we'd be asking the teachers to do -- step back a decade in pay and benefits knowing it will be more than a decade before those salary and benefit schedules are restored to current levels. Which is why supporting a levy is the fair and right thing to do.

Over the years, the local taxpayers have tended to show a lot of support for the district, because they recognize that what they're really doing, ultimately, is supporting the future of their children.

When -- and I say when, not if, no matter how reluctant the district is to do it -- the district is going to be forced to seek this levy, the voters need to support it, especially if we want to keep the good teachers we've got. As usual, the errors and shortcomings of Congress and the legislature are falling on our backs. But if the voters want to do what is right, they should bite the bullet and vote yes when the time comes.