Fairfield school board approves $1.1 million budget cut

FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Community School District Board of Directors approved a $1.1 million budget cut to the 2024-25 school year during its regular meeting Monday, Feb. 19.

The cut will eliminate 13.5 positions in the district, which includes four “certified” staff such as teachers, and 9.5 “classified” staff, which are positions that do not need a certificate. Under the new budget, the district will eliminate one fourth grade and one third grade teacher, the position of curriculum director, a human resources position, and the work-based learning coordinator, among others.

School board president Tai Ward said a 35-person committee consisting of parents, teachers, principals, staff and community members met every Wednesday for 2.5 hours to study the district’s budget and find areas that could be cut. This was done in response to Fairfield learning that it had overspent its revenues by $1.3 million last year, and was projected to overspend by $1.4 million next school year.

“This is a tough situation to be in,” Ward said. “We were transparent. We showed [the committee] all the numbers, asked for their feedback, and they spent 10-12 hours with us. Involving people from the beginning helped get everybody on board for what needs to be done to put us on a good financial path. I credit the process for how smoothly this has gone.”

Ward explained that the board cut a teacher from third grade and fourth grade because those grades have an “additional” teacher that other grades do not have, so the board is bringing the number of teachers per grade more in-line with the rest of the grades.

For the other positions cut, their responsibilities will be distributed among other employees in that building or department. For instance, since Stephanie Mishler was the curriculum director and became the interim superintendent after Laurie Noll stepped down in 2023, the board decided to eliminate that position and have the curriculum director’s duties go to the principals and support staff in each building.

The work-based learning director is a new position created within the last couple of years to manage the work-based learning program. Ward said the board believes that is a valuable program, and it will continue in the district, and now the responsibilities of the director will be split among other employees. Ward said the same was true for the human resources position the board is eliminating.

“We want to reassure people that, though the work-based learning coordinator position is going away, that does not mean the end of the work-based learning program,” Ward said. “Lot of kids get a ton of value from it, and our company partners get a lot of value from it.”

Larry Sigel, an expert from Iowa School Finance Information Systems (ISFIS), told the Fairfield school board in December that it would likely need to cut $1.7 million over a three-year period in order to stay financially health. Ward said that this $1.1 million cut for next year represents a major step toward that goal.

“We probably won’t have to do anything on this scale next year,” Ward said about the budget cuts. “We’ll have some hard decisions in the future, but we’re hoping to find more efficiencies that are non-personnel, so we don’t have big reductions in staffing.”

Former Fairfield High School business teacher and FBLA advisor Diane Goudy spoke during public comment time, asking the board to reconsider its plan to eliminate the shipping/receiving/printing maintenance position and the work-based learning coordinator.

Goudy said the shipping/receiving/maintenance person is responsible for taking care of the teachers’ printing, so they can distribute printed materials to the students. She said the work-based learning coordinator provides students with valuable skills they will use in the workforce.

“If you talk to the employers in town, they know the importance of what we’re doing there,” Goudy said. “I would like you to consider the ramifications if those two positions are lost, especially for our kids, and especially for our community, because it does have long-term effects.”

Third-grade teacher Mindy Hoskins approached the microphone after Goudy and urged the school board to consider how the proposed cuts would affect students and the people who work with those students.

“The people of this community elected you to this board to be their voice and to help lead our district in a positive direction,” Hoskins said. “I thank you very much for your service to the students and staff and families of Fairfield school district.”

Members of the school board discussed whether the district could simply reduce the work-based learning coordinator’s job from fulltime to parttime. Board member Christie Kessel said she liked that idea because it would save the district money, without losing the person the district has already invested in. Mishler said the amount of work the work-based learning coordinator has depends on the number of high school students enrolled in the program, but she did not recommend the board re-write the budget package that trimmed nearly $1.1 million.

“The packages were written by those administrators taking all these questions into consideration,” Mishler said.

In other school board news, the board held interviews with superintendent candidates Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 20-21, and hopes to be able to pick two finalists by the end of the week. Ward said that when the board meets on Feb. 28, the two finalists will be there, and the board hopes to be able to offer a contract to one of them that day.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com