TEACHERS TOLD SALARY FREEZES ARE POSSIBLE

A meeting with superintendent Dr. Dan Tallent Wednesday left some Cape Girardeau school teachers hoping for the best but expecting the worst when board members begin consideration of salary schedules and budget cuts for 1998-99.

Tallent met with Central High School faculty to discuss budget recommendations for next school year that administrators may make Monday to the school board. The district has overspent for a number of years and needs to reduce spending by about $1 million next school year to help recover low balances.

Teachers said Tallent's proposals included a freeze in spending on anything that was not funded with state or federal money. That includes all operational spending on items such as textbooks, equipment, utilities and most importantly, teachers' salaries.

Tallent acknowledged that in discussing budget reductions he mentioned the possibility of a freeze on teachers' salaries. School board members haven't made any decisions and won't for quite a while, he said. The district's budget for the next school year won't be finalized until June 30.

Tallent said nothing has been decided on budgetary freezes for this year or any other year. "The board will try to make decisions in March to help administrators put the budget together. Until then we're just gathering information.

"I think everyone's concerned when you talk about making budget cuts," said Tallent. The teachers "had a lot of questions about the financial status of the district that I tried to answer by telling them what things we are considering."

Speech pathologist Sally Beaudean said Tallent presented faculty members with a number of possibilities for reducing spending. She said she understands that budgets have to be balanced.

"I'm not just thrilled that the salaries might be frozen, but on the other hand it's just like a family budget," she said. "I think he outlined lots of places where cuts would be made, so I didn't get the impression that teachers were going to carry the brunt of it."

Social-studies teacher Joseph Bradshaw said his assessment of Tallent's presentation was mixed.

On the one hand everyone understands the district's financial problems and is trying to be reasonable in their salary expectations for the coming year, he said. However, Bradshaw said he didn't like the administration's decision not to get staff input in their preliminary considerations. District employees, especially those on the faculty salary committee and other representative boards, need to be included in any budget discussions regarding spending reductions because they can bring good recommendations to the table, he said.

"Any time you talk about freezing people's salaries obviously that's not going to engender any positive response," he said. "I think the staff realizes we've got a financial problem, and I think the big thing the staff is concerned with is there are some areas that aren't being looked at that might need to be looked at."

He said that includes the apparent refusal by administrators to consider cuts or freezes in all operational areas. For example, he said he asked Tallent during the meeting if administrative reductions were being considered, and the answer he received was no.

"He said he's not planning to make any at this point, and I think that's something that does need to be considered," said Bradshaw. "Every bit of spending they have discretion over, they're going to try and freeze it. They need to look in some broader areas, including administration."