Progress made on school budget, calendar and five-year plan

COLUMBIA — Columbia Public School teachers could see both a decrease in paid work days and an increase in their base salaries, according to the proposed 2008-09 budget presented during a meeting on Thursday.

A final draft of the budget will be posted on the district’s Web site by June 9.

Among the approved budget cuts is a decrease in the number of days teachers are contracted to work, a move that is expected to save the district about $100,000. This two-day reduction would reduce by 10 percent the number of days worked for 400 employees.

However, the board is also considering a proposal that would increase the base teacher salary by 0.5 percent if assessed property values increase.

The assessed values refers to the amount of money that the district gets from property taxes every year, board member Ines Segert said.

Last year, the district received about 5.8 percent of the city’s property tax revenue. This year, the board expects to receive about 3.5 percent, but board members hope for nearly double that amount to fund the base salary increase, Segert said. The district will not know exactly how much it will receive until early June, she said.

Board member Rosie Tippin said teachers’ salaries should reflect their work. “We don’t want our teachers to think that we don’t know the importance of what they do in the classroom.”

The board also discussed the revision of the five-year Comprehensive School Improvement Plan, a guidance plan for long-term goals. The current plan is scheduled to end after the upcoming school year.

The new plan will last from 2009 to 2014 and will have to follow Missouri School Improvement Plan standards.

The district’s current plan already aligns with those standards, and each school reports its annual progress to the district.

The timing for reworking Columbia’s plan is good because a new statewide electronic application system for submitting the plans will soon be in place, said Leslie Trogdon, the district’s director of school improvement.

An evening work session for the school board has been scheduled for June 19 to discuss the budget and gain public input.