Across the state, the educational budget has been reduced to a very slim amount. This has affected all districts; however, Leander hasn’t received as much nightly news coverage as other school districts like Austin and Round Rock. This has left students, faculty and parents in the shadows when it comes to budget cuts that the district is facing for the 2011-2012.

“It’s important to note that what I am proposing is not a final budget, but rather a worst-case scenario based on the information we currently have from the state,” Superintendant Brett Champion said on the March 21 webcast.

Budget cuts range all the way from transportation services to custodial staff to instructional services. The following cuts were approved by the school board at the (date) meeting. While the district has not implemented all cuts, they are still an option should the deficit be worse than projected.

• • Eliminating 141 central office and non-classroom positions
• • Eliminating 109 classroom positions due to adjustments to pupil-teacher ratios ( more students to a classroom)
• • Non-renewing 213 Probationary One (
• • Adding two furlough days to the next year
• • Modifying the pupil-teacher ratio at elementary and high schools and eliminating the double blocking of middle school classes
• • Reducing athletics and fine arts staffing and operations budgets, as well as golf and tennis at middle schools
• • Modifying employee insurance benefits and premiums
• • Eliminating district-provided cell phones and coffee
• • Charging fees for student transfer requests and small appliances
• • Closing LISD for an additional week in the summer
• • Modifying transportation offerings by increasing the walk-to-stop policy and eliminating some special shuttle services
• • Adjusting School start and end times to allow for triple bus routing

A full list of the proposed budget cuts is available on the LISD website.

 “We delayed making decisions as long as possible because we wanted to have input from staff, community and parents, as well as the ability to research any and all options,” Champion said.  

To get involved with the issues, the LISD website reports that anyone can contact the district lawmakers, Senator Steve Ogdon, Representative Charles J. Schwertner or Representative Larry Gonzales and write them a letter that consists of a polite and brief message saying that the most important topic to address this legislative session is and your feelings on the issue.

Other solutions that would prevent the budget to drop even further are to volunteer at LISD schools by filling out the forms and reading about it on the LISD website.

“We’ve diligently looked at efficiencies in our system and have compiled our recommendations after much consideration and deliberations,” Champion said. 

For up-to-date information, you can subscribe to the LISD Insider for weekly updates.