I’m Dot Perkins, Superintendent of the Gallatin County Schools and President-Elect of KASS, the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents. I am in my 10th year as superintendent of the Gallatin County Schools with a total of 31 years in education all in Gallatin County. Like some of you here, I experienced education in Kentucky pre-KERA, KERA, post-KERA, and now SB-1 – “Unbridled Learning”.
Gallatin County is home to The Kentucky Speedway and I am a survivor of the first NASCAR race in Kentucky. Yes, I was there. I can tell some of you were there, too. With that said, what I do know about The Kentucky Speedway is that they don’t make the same mistakes twice.
Ladies and Gentlemen, many of the things I share with you today in regards to the Governor’s budget will be very similar in many districts across this state. As Commissioner Holliday has noted Kentucky is enjoying a ranking of 14 among all states in Education Week’s “Quality Counts” issue. This is a dramatic jump in ranking from 24th to 14th. The grades and rankings are a testament to our hard-working teachers, administrators, community members and elected officials.
Today I’d like to share with you the successes that funding in education have done for school districts like Gallatin County and thank you for your commitment to what lies ahead. I also want to show you the issues we are facing with dwindling resources.
We are indeed appreciative of the commitment to early childhood education that the governor and legislature are making with increased pre-school funding. There is no way we can get every child college and career ready unless we do a better job of helping all kids be successful at the earliest age possible. Superintendents appreciate the governor adding additional funding to preschool.
In Gallatin County, our schools have experienced continuous improvement and our community has stood behind us supporting us with increasing local taxes up until this year when for the first time in my tenure as superintendent we took the compensating tax rate as opposed to the full 4%. Our compensating tax rate is 66.6. Sixteen point six (16.6)cents of our 66.6 goes to our facilities and currently 49.8 cents goes to our general fund. We have been able to build and renovate our schools and currently have all existing school facilities that are less than 20 years old with the exception of our Alternative School. This is something our community is very proud of and a visual reminder where much of their local tax money goes.
My father always told me when I was growing up that you will get exactly what you are willing to pay for. We must be willing to pay for an education that will prepare students to be college and career ready if we expect to give every child that opportunity. This is mandated by SB1-“Unbridled Learning.”
Gallatin County has experienced tremendous success in education over the last 10 years. Our state assessment results continue to show improvement and our ACT scores have improved every year as well. During that time, we had the good fortune as all schools did to have state money for textbooks, for professional development, after school tutoring, and technology. Those days are over. The gains we have made and the continuous improvement we have made In Gallatin County are in jeopardy. Transportation costs have soared, increasing costs for contributions to teacher retirement, county retirement, and other mandated expenses that have been pushed down to the local level have depleted our reserves and for the first time in my superintendent career the contingency in our draft budget for 2012-2013 will only be 2 ½ %. The Gallatin County schools want to do what SB1 – “Unbridled Learning” tells us we must do – prepare every child to be college and career ready. We have climbed out on this limb to do this for our kids, as we look back and we see the limb being sawed off behind us with state funding cuts and increasing costs and expenses being pushed down to the local level. Our board of education like every board of education in the state signed the Commonwealth College & Career Readiness Pledge to increase by 50% the percentage of our students who are college and career ready. For us in Gallatin County our goal is to increase the percentage of students who were college and career ready in 2010 from 21% to 61% in 2015. We are committed to “Unbridled Learning” and we will do whatever it takes to help our children be successful. We are seeking your leadership, support, and commitment to be certain the financial supports are there to help our youngest citizens become all they can be.
I have been involved in Kentucky education for 31 years. I am fearful that I am a witness to watching our education system dismantled and funding levels for education slide back to pre-KERA days. What we do today in our commitment to our children and their education will impact the leaders we have tomorrow, the people who will occupy your seats and mine.
We have an opportunity to send a clear and strong message to what is important and what our priorities are in Kentucky. We can be satisfied and content with being ranked #14 in Ed. Week’s “Quality Counts” and comment about the good old days when we slide backwards, or we can hold firm, and put our resources towards the things we value most – our children.
The Kentucky Speedway does not make the same mistakes twice. We shouldn’t either. Let us find the will and the resources to make education for our children our number one priority and restore the funds that made the gains we made in Gallatin County available to all children now and in the future.
Our Issues
*SEEK and Transportation funding have basically been flat or reduced over the past 5 years putting an ever larger burden on the local community to fund the increasing costs mandated by the state.
*Other state funding has been drastically reduced for much needed services in our district forcing the local school district to use other funds to be able to provide the same service. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to fill in the funding gaps for these programs any more – Family Resource & Youth Service Center, ESS (After School Tutoring/Summer School), Safe Schools, Professional Development, Textbooks.
*The state has not fully funded transportation costs since Fiscal Year 2003-2004. Our district has had to come up with over a half a million dollars each year of the past 5 years to run our buses.
*The county retirement employer contribution rate has steadily increased over the past several years, from a low of 10.98% to 19.55% for next year. This is an average increase of about 10% per year. Based on our classified payroll, that translates to an increase of about $30,500 per year.
*For years, the state of Kentucky has been requiring school districts to pay for the matching part of KTRS in federal programs, while the federal program dollars continue to be cut. This shift of dollars from the state budget to the local school district budget is ever increasing, and with the addition of the employee match for health insurance in 2011 the additions will cost our district nearly $100,000.
*The contingency only represents one line item in our budget and serves as a place from where funds can be transferred in the event of an expense overrun in another budget code. This item keeps the district from depleting its fund balance in case of unexpected or extraordinary expenditures.
*The Government Finance Officers Association recommends as best practice that local school districts keep a fund balance of no less than two month’s revenue or expenditures in reserve. Our fund balance has consistently fallen below that practice over the past five years.
*The state of Kentucky has required the school district to fund other expenditures that were previously supported at the state or federal level. Some Examples include: Technology-Infinite Campus, MUNIS Cloud. Special Education requirements have changed, leading to reduced identification of special education students and reduced funding while remaining students often require higher levels of service. Edujobs funding is supporting our district in the amount of around $300,000 this year. There currently is no provision for this funding in the budget for 2012-2013, forcing our district to absorb these expenditures in our general fund for the coming fiscal year.
*In conclusion, state revenues to the school districts of Kentucky have continued to remain stagnant or fall over the past several years. Expenditures that have been traditionally borne by the state have been pushed down to the local level. As a result, more and more of the burden of funding our school district has fallen on the local citizens who not only pay state taxes but are increasingly burdened by local taxes just to maintain the current level of services for the school children of Gallatin County. Fund balances of our school district continually fall below the recommended averages. Schools in Kentucky are in dire need of some financial reforms at the state level if any progress is to be made.