Dalton adds back positions to literacy program

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June 16, 2012

Dalton adds back positions to literacy program

Rachel Brown rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Sat Jun 16, 2012, 06:10 AM EDT

About 10 more educators will be hired to bolster the literacy program in Dalton Public Schools as officials have committed additional money to the program this year.

The Literacy Collaborative is a school reform model developed at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. Designed to improve the reading, writing and language skills of students in kindergarten through eighth grade, it emphasizes training in-house literacy coaches to work with teachers to provide more intense and individualized instruction.

School system finance director Theresa Perry said adding the 9.75 positions, bringing the total for the Literacy Collaborative to 38, will help stretched-thin teachers be able to serve more students who need help.

In the past three years, the school district has cut 69 positions in various programs and levels because of financial constraints. That included cutting several literacy positions while enrollment has grown by 2 to 3 percent each year.

“We cut positions when our enrollment was growing in order to be responsive to the community,” Perry said. “What we’re adding back in next year doesn’t even catch us back up.”

At $61 million in expenditures, the school district’s general budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 is $6.3 million more than for the current year. Some $1.9 million of that extra expense is because of an expected 2 percent increase in the district’s nearly 7,100-student enrollment, requiring more teachers, while the rest will be primarily to fund the added literacy positions or positions needed elsewhere in the district. Another $448,860 in extra expense comes as the district reduces by two the number of furlough days for most employees.

Added positions mean added costs for benefits, and the budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes another $737,132 to cover them. Rising health care costs for both teaching and non-teaching employees will cost the district about another $1 million, while the costs the district pays into the Teacher Retirement System are going up by $265,700.

Because Whitfield County no longer has an Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) in place to pay down debt from previous building projects, the budget for the upcoming year includes a $1.5 million payment from the general fund to take care of that. Several lesser expenses are also going up, including costs for technology, books and supplies.

Revenues are also up slightly, to an expected $56.7 million compared to the current year’s projected $54.14 million. Officials are expecting to see about $700,000 more from state funding than was budgeted last year because of the rising enrollment and $1.2 million more than was budgeted last year in local property tax revenue.

There was also some savings in other areas of the general budget as officials cut materials and supplies, were able to slash some dollars off expenses for items like phone and Internet bills, and because not as much local money has been funneled into the state-run pre-kindergarten program as before.

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Dalton adds back positions to literacy program

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