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Local Iowa School Districts get Budget Warning Letters Posted 31 July 2008 Several local school districts have received warning letters this year from the Iowa Department of Education. The message was clear: Cut spending or face getting shut down. The DOE, for the first time, sent correspondence on the topic to 60 districts projected to spend over budget for the 2009 school year. One of those districts was Dubuque. Out of the 60 Iowa schools the department notified, the Dubuque Community School District is by far the largest both in enrollment and the size of the projected budget deficit. Other area schools receiving notice were Alburnett, Aplington-Parkersburg, Hudson, Oelwein, Starmont, Turkey Valley, and West Delaware. The letters went out in early spring. Since then, school boards have been working to cut costs. According to the state, Dubuque had a $98.3 million budget for the upcoming school year, but would more than likely exceed that in real costs. The Department of Education letter to Dubuque estimated the district must cut $2.9 million to stay on budget. The Dubuque School Board is trying to cut $5.5 million by reducing the number of teachers, cutting programming, departmental budgets, school allocations, equipment spending and decided not to purchase a new school bus, to be on the safe side. Turkey Valley Superintendent John Roethsliberger said his district has already taken care of what they needed to budget-wise earlier this spring. The DOE announced Turkey Valley was projected to have a $76,000 shortfall for fiscal year 2009. To alleviate that, Roethsliberger said the district has cut one administrator position and four full-time teaching jobs over the past two years. The Department of Education said the letters are one way to help schools recognize potential budget disasters. It's illegal in Iowa for any school to overspend their authorized budget. If a school has two years in the negative, a committee could come to the school for what's called "phase two accreditation". That's when a district might face mandatory closure.

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