School district’s budget plan hinges on Alvord sale

Deal not yet finalized, but board OKs 2018-19 budget, planning on $2.55M for social workers, one-time bonuses

The Santa Fe school board on Tuesday voted 4-0 to approve a $265 million operating budget for 2018-19.

The action followed weeks of board members grappling with how to best cut about $1.5 million in services to fill a budget hole while debating whether to use nearly $2.3 million in one-time funds to kickstart new initiatives and offer employee stipends.

The nonrecurring funds are from the pending sale of the Alvord elementary school buildings and sale of Kaune elementary school buildings.

The Kaune facility was sold for just over $3 million to United Way of Santa Fe County for an early childhood education center that is scheduled to open in August. But the $2.55 million sale of Alvord, near the Railyard District, to local developers who plan a mixed-use commercial and residential project at the site, hasn’t been finalized.

The board is gambling, therefore, on the deal going through to fund five new social workers to aid troubled youth, start a program to ensure first-graders are reading proficiently and give one-time bonus checks to workers, among other measures.

Even if the money does come through, Superintendent Veronica García and several board members said, the funds are only good for one year. If the district doesn’t find new money next year to support the initiatives, they could all be short-lived.

Board President Steven Carrillo said before the board meeting Tuesday that he’s certain funds from the Alvord sale will become available. The city Planning Commission unanimously green lighted the redevelopment of the 31,000-square-foot, 70-year-old building on Alarid Street in April. The project is waiting approval from the City Council.

Carrillo also has said he believes the state government’s financial outlook may be better next year, and he pointed out that a new governor will take office in

January — hopefully one who is open to the idea of investing more money in public schools.

But García said before Tuesday’s meeting that if those Alvord funds do not come through, the proposed initiatives won’t get off the ground.“I’m not spending money we don’t have,” she said. But, García told the board, if those funds come in beyond the end of the fiscal year — June 30 — she can work them into the budget through budget adjustment requests.

García and her staff have spent months looking for ways to bridge the $1.55 million gap without drastically affecting students and staff members. For example, the district will save hundreds of thousands of dollars by not filling multiyear vacancies, given the district is experiencing a decline in student enrollment and likely won’t need many of those positions.

And because of additional transportation funds from the state, the district can save $150,000 in a subsidy fund for transportation, García said.

She said she will also trim about $235,000 from her administrative budget, but she declined to offer details.

The district received a slight increase in its state funding this year, but that bump was offset by state-mandated pay hikes for teachers and other employees at a cost of $2.7 million.

Some of the other new measures that would be funded with one-time revenues: hiring another staffer for the district’s athletic department, expanding a computer science and coding program, and ensuring that professional development opportunities — originally slated to be cut — remain in place for at least another year.

In a separate action, the board also unanimously approved a roughly $3.2 million budget for the Academy for Technology and the Classics, the only district charter school in the city, which serves about 390 students.

School board member Lorraine Price, who has been ill and has missed several meetings, did not attend Tuesday’s meeting and did not cast a vote.