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Superintendent’s budget recommendations include eliminating more than 90 positions

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Shawnee Mission Superintendent Gene Johnson announced his budget recommendations to the board of education Monday.

Librarians, music instructors and teachers’ aides were spared some significant cutbacks in Superintendent Gene Johnson’s budget proposal for the Shawnee Mission School District.

But Johnson recommended that dozens of teachers and staff members — along with services and supplies — be cut as the district faces a budget situation that looks increasingly grim.

Johnson’s recommendations, presented to the board of education Monday night at SM South, included eliminating more than 90 full time job equivalencies. Thirty one of those jobs will be for K-12 teachers. Thirty three of them will be for special education staff.

The original proposals put before district patrons in an online survey last month had called for the elimination of 49 K-12 teachers. Johnson said his recommendation eliminated 13 elementary teachers and five middle and high school teachers less than initially proposed.

If approved by the board of education, Johnson’s proposal will mean that custodial services are reduced as well, with classrooms no longer getting full cleanings every day.

“This will be a change of doing business here in Shawnee Mission,” Johnson said.

The plan had a total of $7,098,386 in budget cuts. It also included $1,228,000 in new revenue generated from fees for using district facilities and services. For example, parents will be asked to pay approximately 20 percent more for all-day kindergarten next year, and facility rental fees will rise.

Of the 20 proposed budget-balancing measures in last month’s online survey, Johnson recommended against the adoption of just four.

They were:

  • Eliminating the Parents as Teachers program, which would have saved $200,000.
  • Eliminating the elementary band and strings program, which would have saved $707,000 (this announcement drew a round of applause from the audience, the only one of the night).
  • Replacing secondary librarians with library aides, which would have saved $568,000 (Johnson did, however, recommend that the district eliminate the purchase of library books for a year, saving $107,000).
  • Reducing work days for paraeducators and teachers’ aides, which would have saved $410,000.

The board will begin work at its next meeting on the formal budget process. An approved budget is due to the state in early August.

Johnson told the board and the audience that the district’s budget prospects would continue to be hampered by its inability to raise funds at the local level.

“Legislatively, we’re continuing to work on local funding,” Johnson said. “To date, we haven’t been successful in Topeka.”

Johnson said he held out some hope that the legislature may take steps toward addressing the state’s school funding formula when it reconvenes in late April.

About the author

Jay Senter
Jay Senter

Jay Senter is the founder and publisher of the Post.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in business at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he worked as a reporter and editor at The Badger Herald.

He went on to receive a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas, where he earned the Calder Pickett Award. While he was in graduate school, he also worked as a reporter for the Lawrence Journal-World.

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