Saving Fridays

The onslaught of bad tidings that has swamped the Baker School District for the past several months was interrupted this week by some good news.

Really good news, in fact.

Rather than switch to a four-day week when school resumes this fall, it now looks as though students in Baker City schools will spend more time in the classroom rather than less.

Although the budget board only advises the school board, we have a hunch this piece of advice will be heeded — the five school board members also serve on the budget board, and four of those five voted for the five-day schedule Tuesday.

The district’s money woes are not over, though.

The proposed budget includes 23.2 percent cuts in extracurricular programs next year. Superintendent Don Ulrey plans to reduce his salary by 20 percent next year (although he intends to work a 40-hour week when necessary), and Beth Bigelow, the district’s director of instruction and federal programs, plans to take Fridays off and trim her salary by 20 percent.

In addition, the schedule the budget board endorsed Tuesday calls for cutting 10 days from the 2009-10 school year (the district cut six days from the current year to help balance its budget; Thursday was the last day for students).

But making Fridays full days next year will almost make up the difference in lost class time.

Although we’re pleased with the budget board’s decision, and we urge the school board when it meets June 16 to adopt a budget that includes the five-day schedule, we’re confused as to why the idea wasn’t broached earlier.

Earlier this spring the district administration unveiled the budget plan that called for a four-day week.

Fortunately, budget board members balked at approving that schedule and insisted on taking more time to consider other options.

The linchpin to the option they chose Tuesday is spending $150,000 of the district’s $400,000 contingency.

Yet $150,000 is precisely the amount the district administration projected it would save next year by shifting to a four-day schedule.

We understand that the four-day schedule was part of the district’s worst-case scenario. We also understand that the district’s financial outlook improved after administrators introduced the budget that proposed a four-day schedule.

Specifically, Democratic leaders in the Legislature earlier this month proposed spending $6 billion for K-12 education during the next biennium instead of $5.6 billion — the latter figure is the one on which the school district’s original budget, with the four-day week, was based.

Yet that fails to explain why the district suggested to the budget board only the extreme option of cutting half a day from each week, when an alternative was available that achieved the same monetary goal — spending $150,000 from its contingency.

That’s not an ideal solution, of course — even at $400,000, the contingency is not exactly a thick cushion in case the district has to deal with an unexpected expense.

Nonetheless, we think district officials should have presented the contingency option to the budget board because that option, unlike the four-day schedule, does not cut the amount of time students spend in class.

Luckily for Baker City students — and for their parents, some of whom have been fretting about what they’d do if their kids had three-day weekends every week — the budget board made the best of their imperfect situation.