The Rock Hill School Board Needs Your Help

The Rock Hill School Board will have a called work session to discuss budgeting issues on Monday, May 4, 2009 at the District Office. Below are some questions that have been asked by Board members. Please be mindful that these are questions for information or clarification, not an indication that action will be taken in any of these areas. If you are aware of areas where other districts have found savings or you believe there could be savings for our district, please leave a comment or email me directly at jvining@rock-hill.k12.sc.us

Budget Questions From Board Members
· How much money is in the budget for consultants?
· How many district credit cards are there and how much is being charged to them?
· How many cell phones (and the amount being spent) are being paid for by the district and schools? Does the district coordinate the contract for these and have we gone out for competitive bids on them?
· How much do we spend on our email servers and spam filter? What would be the cost to convert email to GMail?
· How much do we spend on software license? Have we considered switching to open source programs instead?
· How many employees have exited Terri? How much money would be saved if those employees were restricted to making no more than someone with 28 years experience?
· How much money is in the budget for "in district" travel? For out of district travel?
· How much money is in the budget for contract work (cleaning, maintenance, grass cutting, ect.) and what are the major activities?
· How much do we spend for graduation and have we considered selling tickets to defray costs (first 4 tickets free)?
· How much money would we save in utilities if our "out of city schools", primarily Rock Hill , Castle Heights , and Independence were in the city?
· How much money would we save if all our schools on city power had the same "new schools" power cost.
· How much is in the budget for professional development? For late start days?
· How much is in the budget for "District" printing and publications?
· How many district employees have access to vehicles at home? What is the cost for this?
· How much money is spent by our district and schools on mailings and trinkets (shirts, pens, coffee cups ect.)?
· How much does it cost to operate the pony for district communications? Is there a savings by reducing the frequency? Using a more fuel efficient vehicle?
· What is our current contract with Kelly Services (substitute teachers)?
· How many substitute hours/days/people does $250,000 equal (amount recommended for removal from budget)?
· Looking back at the Consultant's recommendations, are we making progress on special needs classes & teachers as recommended by the consultant?
· List of positions that did not renew contracts and their current salaries?
· Review travel request form and how conferences and workshops are selected?
· Cost for I.B program(s)?
· Cost for school nurses (attrition)?
· Can any positions be shared by schools?
· How much could be saved by not printing payroll stubs (have them available online)?
· How much to we contribute toward IB and AP exams?
· How much do we spend on overtime and are there opportunities there?
· How much do we spend on postage and are there opportunities there?
· How much do we spend printing High School course catalogs and can we put this online instead?
· Do we have materials needed for a few classes that we should be charging student fees for?
· Do we still have a minimum number of students required for advanced classes (primarily IB) and could we raise the minimum to save money? Should we get rid of the easy math class for IB?