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Tigard-Tualatin School District Officials Cheerfully Drafting 2006-07 Budget

Posted on: Thursday, 23 March 2006, 21:00 CST

By Maya Blackmun, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

Mar. 23--The mood of Tigard-Tualatin School District officials drafting a 2006-07 budget is considerably cheerier this spring than it was a few months ago.

Oregon's economic recovery is generating higher property tax revenue, returns on the district's investments have been better than expected, and the local option property tax levy is bringing in more than expected, Superintendent Rob Saxton said. The additional revenue is expected to total about $3 million.

District administrators are refining proposals for the budget that will be presented to the school board in May. Saxton plans to begin discussions with the board in April on how any additional revenue might be spent.

Saxton said the general fund is expected to total about $92.1 million, up about 5.4 percent from the current year's budget of $87.1 million.

Jerry Larson, chairman of the district budget committee, heard the good news when he came back from a recent vacation. Although he said he's still wary about the figures, "it did lift a whole shadow off my shoulders of what we will have to deal with."

But even though the district's financial picture has brightened , Saxton said, state education funding remains at recession levels and fails to keep pace with the increased costs districts face.

Saxton declined to outline any programs he would propose adding but said the district is moving ahead with a push to improve the literacy of middle and high school students.

Barry Albertson, who's in his fifth year as a school board member, said that talking about budget cuts in previous years left him feeling, "Which arm do you want?" He's been pulled aside at sports events and school performances to listen to pleas for protecting one program or another. He said parents have told him, "If it weren't for this, my kid might not be in school."

He expects a different kind of buttonholing this budget cycle. "It's nice to be in this position," said Albertson, who described himself as cautiously optimistic about the district's finances.

But any new program would be considered only if it were financially sustainable, Saxton and Albertson said.

Last fall, Saxton organized a budget-process committee made up of the district's budget committee, parents, community members, labor union representatives and school and district administrators to review the district's spending and revenue. The committee met from late November to late January, coming up with recommendations that followed Saxton's directive to hold to a budget that wouldn't add any costs.

"Even now, when we have a few more dollars, it's still instructive," he said.

The expanded budget review committee did a lot of "spade work," Larsen said, and reached consensus in urging two actions:

--The strengthening of secondary-level literacy instruction.

--Either reducing class sizes or at least avoiding any increase.

"It looks like we'll probably be able to do that," he said.

But Larsen warned that the economy could turn down again. Those who campaigned for the local option property tax levy, which was renewed in 2004 and will expire in 2010, had high hopes but found that it only staved off deeper cuts, he said. "There's a danger in thinking there's a major turnaround and things are all rosy."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

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Source: The Oregonian

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