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State K-12 Budget Cuts Axe Five Jobs in Beresford

Last updated on 2011.03.18

I noted hard school budget decisions at Yankton and Rapid City earlier this week. Now a friend on Facebook shares the following list of impacts of Governor Dennis Daugaard's K-12 budget cuts on the Beresford school district:

Beresford has determined how it will operate with $316,541 less in 2011-12. In addition to a wide variety of cuts to activities and programs, positions eliminated include one elementary teacher, one administrator, two elementary aids, and the school nurse. The aids have been there close to 20 years...the school nurse for 30 years. These are typical of the JOBS that will be lost in communities all across SD.

Beresford superintendent Brian Field notes that his school has already cut services due to the Legislature's broken budget promise last year:

Due to no increase in funding for fiscal year 2011, our district already made $105,555 in budget reductions going into the 2010-2011 school year, including: 1) not filling the high school health/physical education teaching position; 2) certified district librarian position was eliminated and replaced with a full-time library aide; 3) half-time aide position funded by general fund was eliminated; 4) three summer custodial positions were eliminated and other custodians received reduced hours; and 5) one bus route was eliminated, moving from 6 to 5 routes.

To the north, things are no cheerier: the Watertown school district will discuss $1.4 million in possible cuts to next school year's budget at a public work session March 28.

If you have information about the impact of the Daugaard budget on your school district, send it my way. It will be useful to compile a statewide list of local tax hikes, teachers and administrators laid off, programs eliminated, and other changes schools make to survive the budget Pierre has wrought.

6 Comments

  1. Wayne Pauli 2011.03.19

    The human side of this budget is terribly sobering. The Governor would not / could not give us numbers about how many jobs would be lost. It is all about "efficiency" is all we heard from him and his majority party. I believe that the Madison district stated that the cuts were $360,000. That will come at the expense of people as well. What have we done?

  2. John 2011.03.19

    The real results will not be seen until Dennis is long gone from the Governor's Office.

    I was never a really big fan of Rounds, but his creative moving of funds and structural budget problems did not affect my child's education.

  3. grudznick 2011.03.19

    The budget that Pierre hath wrought? I heard the Pierre school district is meeting next week to figure out how to deal with these reductions. How can their budget have already affected those other towns?

    [CAH: "Pierre", as in Daugaard, Olson, state government.]

  4. jana 2011.03.22

    Does anyone know if, or how many of our legislators belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council? Seems like there are a lot of policy decisions that are being driven by this front group/lobbiest organization.

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