
By KARI BLURTON
Hays Post
Dean Katt is looking more trim these days as he begins to lose the 20-plus pounds he said he gained as a result of stress since he first moved to Hays in August as interim superintendent.
Katt, whose role was made permanent by the school board in December, entered a district facing a series of issues, including administrative staff turnover and a looming budget crisis — more than a $1 million budget shortfall for the 2014-15 year.
Katt said his time in Hays has been both “rewarding” and “gut-wrenching” as he and the USD 489 Board of Education worked to balance the budget and maintain the standard of education for Hays students.
“Overall, you can’t beat the quality of education that is provided in Hays. It is second to none. You look at the graduation rates, success rate, test scores. Everything has been successful — music, athletics, everything — and I think we need to continue that tradition,” Katt said.
“But we have to change some things to be able to do that,” he added.
Those changes have come into focus in recent months, as the board has made moves to cut staff, increase student fees and dissect every aspect of the USD 489 budget. The district also will ask voters next month to approve an increase in the local option budget via a mail-in ballot.
Despite the turmoil and difficult decisions, Katt said he is feeling positive about the district’s future.
“(I) feel like we really have come to a point now that we can start looking at how we are going to rebuild,” he said.
Last week, the board approved raising activity and workbook/enrollment fees as well as reducing the number of bus routes — moves Katt said will bring approximately $316,000 dollars into the budget. It will be the first time since 1998 the district has not been $1 million in the red — a trend, Katt said, that began when state funding for education was cut “year after year.”
However, Katt said the budget is not at the point where the district could bring back some of the 16 teachers who received notice their contracts would not be renewed for the 2014-15 school year.
With contingency funds drained, Katt said “$316,000 dollars is not a huge amount, but it is a good start.”
“Our plan now is to get through the school year. We are spending all our contingency reserves and spending down all of our other funds therefore we have no carryover, which is a scary thought” he said. “We still have to make payroll and do all those things next year, so I am going to say that this isn’t enough right now to bring back staff until we know at the end of the year it (the budget) is higher.”
Katt said a decision about bringing staff back will most likely not be discussed until late July or August.
“With the local option budget election coming up — if that should pass to 31 percent — we would see an increase of $200,000, and I think we would definitely look at bringing back staff and re-assessing fees,” Katt said.
In fact, the board and Katt have said bringing teachers back and decreasing class size in elementary classes is the “number one priority” if the LOB passes. A full statement is on the USD 489 website here.
Katt is spreading the district’s message on a “talking tour,” hoping to educate the community on the budget and how the 1 percent LOB increase would affect residents.
Katt said so far the tours have been “positive,” but there are two concerns he hears about the most.
One is the fact that if the 1 percent increase to the LOB passes in June, the school board has the ability to raise it to 32 percent or 33 percent without another referendum, although that increase would sunset after one year.
He said another issue often raised is the opinion the district spends too much on athletics.
“Athletics is one that is an easy target,” Katt said, noting he often gets asked “Why don’t you just cut athletics?”
Katt said community boosters subsidize much of the cost of athletics and other extracurricular activities and what the district spends is “not really that big of amount in the big scheme of things.”
Katt the amount community boosters donate is “phenomenal — hundreds of thousands of dollars they subsidize as a direct result of the all the (state) cuts that have happened over the last 10 years.”
Katt spoke passionately about the importance of programs such as athletics and music, noting even with the recent reduction of music staff, the programs are not being cut.
“Those programs are just as important to those kids who participate in them as anything else. So you need to look at it globally as to what we need to do to provide a well-rounded education,” Katt said. “I personally believe all those programs are important from music to scholars bowl to athletics. All teach life lessons, and they all have a purpose.”
Regarding state funding cuts to education, “It has just been whittled away — and it has happened year after year,” said Katt, a reality affecting “a lot of districts statewide.”
Katt said the solution is to work together.
“Instead of trying to pit one group against the other, whether it is home-schooling, private schools, whatever it is, we need to concentrate on educating every kid to the best we can, regardless of what program they are in.”
For more information on the LOB and the district’s budget the public is invited to attend one of the Talking Tour sessions.
More information on the LOB budget is available on the district’s website.
Katt said, he and USD 489 Coordinator of Information Elizabeth Jaeger, will answer constituent questions directly as well. They can be contacted at (785) 625-2400, [email protected] or [email protected].
The school board will meet next for a retreat. Click HERE for more on that meeting.