Weld RE-1 School District officials will reduce staffing for the 2024-25 school year due to a budget deficit.
No one in the district faces layoffs as part of the reduction, according to Superintendent Johan van Nieuwenhuizen, who said officials will instead not fill certain roles as they’re vacated.
In the past decade, Weld RE-1 has lost an estimated $21 million because of the budget stabilization factor, according to van Nieuwenhuizen. The budget stabilization factor has allowed lawmakers to divert K-12 funding to other areas in the state’s budget since 2009.
Weld RE-1’s budget deficit now sits at $4.2 million, according to the revised budget approved by the school board on Jan. 17.
Expenses have exceeded the districtap revenues as staff sizes have grown, enrollment has declined and facilities have required maintenance across the district’s six schools in Gilcrest, LaSalle and Platteville, van Nieuwenhuizen said.
In 2016, taxpayers helped pass a $62 million bond to help with much-needed maintenance on school facilities after 22 years without any bond issues, van Nieuwenhuizen said. Although grateful for the support from the community, Weld RE-1 needed about $100 million to cover the total cost of the projects, he added.
The bond money helped provide a “facelift” to the school buildings, such as adding more classrooms and bringing the system up to code. However, the money generated from the bond could not fully cover all capital project expenses.
The district’s recruitment of more staff as enrollment has declined since the pandemic has also affected the district’s financial situation.
Weld RE-1 has added staff to its rosters in the last decade to provide support services and better serve the community, van Nieuwenhuizen said. Simultaneously, the district raised salaries to compete with the surrounding districts for retention and recruitment purposes.
“We want to make sure we keep the best and recruit the best,” he said. “Over the last decade, we increased our staff salary compensation, probably around 30% total overtime.”
Meanwhile, year after year since the pandemic, enrollment has steadily declined. Student enrollment is one component of the formula to determine the revenue that will be available in a school districtap budget. If student enrollment drops, the state will allocate less money to the district.
A lack of property development in the district and the community’s flat birth rate have led to the drop in enrollment at Weld RE-1, van Nieuwenhuizen said. Students leave the community after graduation, and most of them don’t return. As a result, officials project no spikes in new students.
“We are not a growing community,” van Nieuwenhuizen said. “With our development, it’s probably not going to get better. It’s actually getting worse. That impacts our revenues 100%.”
Solution comes down to cutting down staffing
To keep providing a safe and exemplary education in a 21st-century environment, van Nieuwenhuizen said administrators went to the school board to look into solutions for reducing the budget deficit.
Along with using some of the board’s fund balance, the district seeks to make staffing adjustments to bring the number of staff members in ratio to the number of students.
The school board recently approved a policy, giving leadership official guidelines to set the teacher-to-student ratio on an annual basis.
For example, in some grade levels, Weld RE-1 has three teachers serving a split total of 44 students. However, it’s common for school districts to have only two teachers instead of three for this amount of students, van Nieuwenhuizen said.
The district plans to reduce staffing from three teachers to two per grade level, among other adjustments. Officials plan to incorporate a guideline to allow 24 students per teacher for kindergarten through second grade and 27 students per teacher for grades third through fifth.
Upon the announcement of sizing plans, some staff members became concerned about losing their jobs or a reduction in their salaries. However, van Nieuwenhuizen said the district has no plans for either of those alternatives, rather adjustments remain the focus.
To avoid terminations, Weld RE-1 intends to leave any targeted positions that are vacated going into next year unfilled. Annually, the district has a 20% staff turnover rate due to people leaving, such as moving, changing careers or retiring, according to van Nieuwenhuizen. A preschool teacher, for example, is moving out of the district, reducing the preschool department’s staff.
This natural reduction with no layoffs solves the preschool department’s solution for staffing adjustments for next school year — a model van Nieuwenhuizen aims to follow across the district in every grade level.
However, van Nieuwenhuizen said attrition cannot 100% fix issues that caused the deficit, so a few teachers may have to be transferred to different positions to efficiently make the model work.
“Our district is trying our best, if a staff member wants to be at RE-1, to find them a place in RE-1,” van Nieuwenhuizen said. “That means they may move to a different grade level or assignment.”
The district will not reduce any administrators’ salaries in its efforts to reduce the deficit. The school district does, however, plan to change the benefit structure for administrators in the system.
A Weld RE-1 assistant superintendent makes $135,000 for 260 days for the 2023-24 school year, according to an . A high school principal makes $115,000 for 212 days, a middle school principal makes $110,000 for 202 days and an elementary school principal makes $102,500 for 197 days.
First-year licensed teachers in Weld RE-1 receive a base salary of $43,500. According to van Nieuwenhuizen, that’s up 30% from $33,000 in 2018.
“We hope that … if we cut some of those positions, that will be sufficient to address this budget deficit,” van Nieuwenhuizen said. “And then we will try to move forward and provide the best education we can for our students.”
In the meantime, Weld RE-1 administrators have been transparent with staff members and can answer any questions as they arrive, according to van Nieuwenhuizen.
The district also hosts community roundtable discussions to hear ideas on how to either increase the revenue or decrease the expenses. The next roundtable discussion is set for 6 p.m. Thursday at South Valley Middle School library at 1004 Main St. in Platteville.
The district hopes to bring ideas to the community to gain feedback, such as consolidating Weld RE-1’s two middle schools because one is much smaller, van Nieuwenhuizen said. Consolidation creates opportunities to adjust not only the staff but also administrative duties, he said.
Nothing is set in stone, van Nieuwenhuizen emphasized, apart from the decision to implement a policy on teacher-to-student ratios and to make much-needed employee adjustments. The positions that will face adjustments have not been identified as of yet, and discussions with the community on solutions are still ongoing.
Weld RE-1’s director of personnel will continue to actively work with the principals of all six schools to have conversations about how to successfully make staffing adjustments.
