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Posted at: 11/04/2009 7:21 PM Tough Decisions for Austin(ABC 6 NEWS) - The Austin board of education has some tough decisions to make. Voters in the Austin school district turned-down an operating levy referendum yesterday, and now the board needs to look at ways to make-up the difference. "We'll begin looking at ways to reduce by a million dollars," says David Krenz, the Superintendent of Austin Public Schools. The money would have gone into the district's general fund, which pays for day-to-day operations. "80 percent of that is made up of salaries and benefits, so to really take a look at that situation you have to look at personnel," Krenz says. The school district will also look at increasing class sizes, something it's already been doing. "We felt we were at a level with our classroom sizes that any further increase would start harming the education of our students," says Krenz. And the only programs untouchable by local budget cuts would be those that are protected by state statute, like special ed. "Are we at a level to have to cut programs? That's a process we'll have to go through as we begin to look at next year's budget," he says. The levy ended up on the ballot, in part, because another key source of school funding is facing pressures of it's own, with no signs of change. "It’s pretty solid now, we'll be getting a reduced state aid," Krenz says. "As part of the governor's unallotment another 1.8 billion dollars was taken out of the education system," says State Senator Dan Sparks. And with 40 percent of the state's budget earmarked for schools, education might be a priority, but it's not untouchable. "If you take that 40 percent off the plate it does get much tougher to try to fund some of those other areas and priorities that we have," Sparks says. So voters in the Austin school district already know they'll be going back to the polls next November. At the very least, they’ll be asked to renew an existing levy that expires a year from now, and possibly to add to it. "Just exactly what we put out this year," says Don Fox, Chairman of the Austin Board. "What this has done is forced us to hold another election again at another cost and expense to the district, but we'll have to do it obviously," says Krenz. The operating levy was turned-down by a margin of 116 votes. The board of education will meet tomorrow to certify the election results.
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