Palm Beach County Schools Superintendent Bill Malone is no stranger to dealing with tough budget cuts.
Acting Superintendent Bill Malone at a recent school board meeting. Bruce R. Bennett/The Palm Beach Post.
During a press briefing with reporters Thursday morning, he recalled an instance when, as deputy executive director of the South Florida Water Management District, he and the members of the governing board tried to sit down and cut the Water Management District’s budget to the bare bones.
(You can view the entire press briefing by visiting the school district’s website and watching the video in the lower right corner of the main page.)
After long discussions and line-by-line cost analysis, the budget ended up bigger than before.
“Everyone has personal interests” in the budget that they want to protect, Malone said, noting that the recently announced proposed cuts in the school district’s budget are tough for everyone.
“I don’t believe there’s a soul in the (Palm Beach County School) district that likes everything in the budget,” he said.
Malone said he expects to see some changes to the proposed budget that was offered up this week by school district staff to the school board and the citizen’s budget advisory committee.
But he hopes that board and committee members don’t decide to take a line-by-line look at each proposal. “We may come away further from being balanced,” he said.
One proposed cut that Malone acknowledged has been difficult for many in the district has been the cut in the number of school police officer jobs.
The school police department’s budget is proposed to be cut from about $13.2 million this year to $9.2 million next year with 43 positions, such as 17 current police officers and 24 current school police aides, proposed to be eliminated.
Malone said he spoke at length with School Police Chief Jim Kelly about the cuts. “The proposal on the table would maintain essential policing at schools,” Malone said.
He said that no school would have more than one permanent officer under this proposal, including high schools. He added that the school district has a good relationship with municipal police forces, who can come help if a situation arises.
“Chief Kelly, he’s been with the organization a long time. He’s a team player,” Malone said. “He’s not waved a red flag and said, ‘It’s too much. It’s dangerous.’ But at the same time, it’s a concern.”
The proposed budget includes about $33.5 million in cuts, which still leaves a nearly $2 million budget shortfall. Malone said he intends to let the budget process continue for now, and that hopefully more cuts or savings will be recognized.
He added that furloughs would be “the most obvious quick fix for a small gap,” although he said furloughs have the serious downside of being a one-time savings.
“It makes the mountain higher when it comes to next year,” Malone said. He said earlier in the press conference that the district is “anticipating more trouble next year. … We’re almost at a point where we’ll be $50 million in the hole before we start 2013.”
Saying he doesn’t know what to do about further budget shortfalls in coming years, he added, “I don’t want to say I don’t want to think about it, but I want to get through this first.”
“It’s a horrible situation to be in,” Malone said of the need to slash the budget.
