Tag Archives: budget

Making Lemonade

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Buffy Hamilton recently emialed a bunch of us to ask if any of us

“… have been in a situation in which they had little or no funding and rather than feeling sorry for themselves and simply complaining about how unfair it all is, instead found ways to obtain funding and make lemonade out of a very sour situation.”

I thought you guys might be interested in my response to her for how I’m dealing with my own funding shortfalls. …

Unfortunately, I haven’t found funding, I just make do with what I have the same as everybody else.

Our district funds are about $10 per student; however, were were told we could only spend half of the funds before December.  We’ll find out (soon I hope) if we are allowed to spend the rest.  For me, that means only around $3000 for the year (we have just over 300 students this year) and all of my funds were spent with the magazine subscription renewals and buying ink for the printer & copier to last the year.  Thankfully, paper comes out of classroom supplies (and the art teacher donated 6 cases she found stashed in her closet from the previous art teacher’s hoarding) so I don’t have to worry about budgeting for paper.

I also charge fines and have about $500 in my local account.  This is my emergency fund and what I use to purchase a copy of each of the SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees in February.

Ways I have been coping (and I’m sure its nothing others aren’t also doing):

Reduce existing costs:

  • I didn’t renew a subscription database and cut “expensive” magazines (for example, cut People Magazine which was over $100 and got 6 other subscriptions instead for LESS than what People cost!)
  • I also do not purchase many non-fiction titles unless they are student requests or “hot” titles.
  • I hate to say it, but I no longer purchase solely from Follet or buy full price books.  I buy all of my titles from Books-a-Million’s bargain table.  Yes, it means my kids have to wait for new titles, but sorry, I don’t have the funds.  Will have to find alternatives since BAM hasn’t been putting new teen books out for a while now.  My only Follet order will be the SCYABA books.
  • I only replace toner cartridges for the library’s networked printer once a quarter.  If it runs out before then, tough.  Means students and teachers have to think about what they print. BTW, at least half of my 35 teachers have their computer’s networked to my printer and print out interims.  I should mention that we don’t charge for copies or printing as a previous principal did away with charging since we are a Title 1 school.  Only school related materials may be printed.
  • I only replace the library copier cartridge once a semester.  The copier policy is “only research materials may be copied.”

Find free alternatives:

  • Thankfully, our state has DISCUS (scdiscus.org) that provides free research databases for SC residents.
  • The state also picked up the cost of SCOIS (our career/college database) for high schools.
  • Use online Web 2.0 tools where I can (and when they aren’t blocked!)  LOVE Google everything!
  • We’re using an Edublog account for a high school book club blog – http://2readornot2read.edublogs.org and instead of buying class sets of books we have genre/theme meetings where students choose their own books from what we (or they) have available.
  • I volunteered for the SC Young Adult Book Award Committee and a perk is we get to keep some of the free titles used for review.
  • Tip: Register for Teen Read Week as soon as registration opens (early spring).  I’ve gotten a handful of free books this way!

Request donations/Begging:

  • I donate a LOT of titles to the library (a couple hundred or more a year).  Almost always they are the new YA books that the kids are vying for (as well as myself.)  Yes, expensive for me, but I write off on my (and my parents) taxes and it makes me feel good to be able to purchase the books the kids are begging me to get.
  • I ask teacher, students, and parents to donate books – especially new books (recent copyright dates).  I don’t get as many as I’d like, but I get a few.
  • I beg my principal to let me have first crack at any leftover technology or supply money at the end of the year.

Borrow from the public library and other schools:

  • The librarian at the public library has a student here and she volunteers for me once a week.  If they have a book a student wants, she’ll bring it in for them (if they have a library card) or to me and I’ll create a temporary record and check it out to the student.  Students return the book to me and she takes them back when she comes to me that week.  Our district doesn’t have a true ILL program so we make do with what we can.
  • I also ILL professional materials from the public library all the time.  No way can I afford the prices!
  • We borrow from other school libraries in the district.  Not as easy to do as books aren’t allowed to be transported via our district courier.  We have to make arrangements to get items from and back to schools.

Traditional  methods to raise funds don’t work here.  The only fundraisers that work are ones involving candy/food.  I want to try a book fundraiser from Book Warehouse, but am hesitant as we have so few students and even fewer parents/community members come to the school.  I’m willing to write grants and things like Donors Choice, but finding the time to do so in my already hectic schedule is tough.  Yes, an excuse I know!

Hope this helps.  By now you know I can’t be concise!  I tend to write/say too much.

Heather

UPDATE:  Since sending this to her, I received approval to spend $1200 more of my district funds (YAY!) and we were told that the the courier would now accept our library books so we can now ILL between schools!  However, on the sad side, once again Arts funding (ie: ETV, StreamlineSC, OnePlaceSC) and DISCUS are up on the chopping block by our legislature.  Sigh.  When will they understand how vital these services are for public education?

Flickrcc: “Lemon on Grass” by Cillian Storm

Help Save SC Libraries and ETV!

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Our school library listserv has seen a lot of messages lately about proposed budget cuts to SC Public Libraries and ETV.

Here is the South Carolina Library Association plea:

Dear SCLA Members:

On yesterday afternoon, Thursday, June 10, the SCLA Legislative Committee Chair, Dr. Curtis Rogers shared with the Listserv SCAPLA Action Alert regarding the current budget situation.  I think it is necessary as individuals and residents of South Carolina to express our concerns about the future of libraries and library services in South Carolina.  Please see the message below and act accordingly:

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED

The Governor’s vetoes (Veto 31 and 92) will be considered by the House on Tuesday, June 15.  If the House does not override the vetoes then the Senate will not even consider them. So, at this time, we must focus exclusively on the House, and we must be relentless.  If we do not “win” on Tuesday then over $6.5 million in State funds (including stimulus) is GONE, and we jeopardize losing $2.7 million in Federal LSTA funds.

Here are the details:

Veto # 31 on page 14 of the Governor’s memo is Aid to Public Libraries – $4,653,933

Veto #92 on page 28 of the Governor’s memo is Federal Stimulus Funds – $1,172,758 (.29/capita)

Here is the Message:

Cutting funds to public libraries will kill the economy.  Public libraries provide crucial educational and employment assistance and if this funding goes away so does our ability to educate and prepare students and the unemployed for the workforce.

Aid to Public Libraries is funding that supports direct public services;  [Insert how you spend State Aid here]

Federal Stimulus is used at the discretion of the County Library Boards to bridge gaps in technology, programs and the collection.

Here is the Contact Information:

South Carolina House Contact Info: http://www.scstatehouse.gov/html-pages/housemembers.html
When you look at the list of Representatives you will see that the home county of each Representative is in bold. We are asking you to take responsibility for those whose home county is your service area. House Fax Number: 803-734-2925

ALSO, Please remember: SCLA’s Legislative Action Alert page has CapWiz which allows you to contact your legislator. http://capwiz.com/ala/sc/home/

Sincerely,

Rayburne J.  Turner

SCLA President

www.scla.org

Here is ETV’s plea for assistance:

Your help is needed now! Contact your legislator before the Tuesday, June 15th vote.

Governor Sanford has proposed a cut of over $5.2 million from South Carolina ETV’s $9.6 million state budget appropriation. This is a 52% percent reduction. This would have a devastating impact on ETV and the services provided to public education and to every citizen.

If the legislature does not override these vetoes it would have a crippling affect on services and programs.

  • ETV provides technology training and learning opportunities to 65,000 teachers, all 86 school districts, and their students. In addition, over 6,500 K-12 teachers receive hands-on, face to face training annually. This service would be drastically impaired or eliminated.
  • ETV would be forced to discontinue its public safety and local government training. More than 13,000 law enforcement personnel – this includes local police and sheriff departments, SLED, and corrections officers.
  • ETV’s local and national programming would be significantly impaired, and some services eliminated all-together. Television and radio programs that focus on SC issues and concerns would be in grave jeopardy.
  • ETV is a valuable asset available to every South Carolina citizen, a key component in the state’s educational, cultural and economic development. Many deem ETV as a jewel of South Carolina and a good example of what is good about our state.

Your help is critical to our ability to retain core educational service for every SC citizen. It’s imperative that these vetoes be overturned. We need your help – please contact your legislator today to save ETV!

http://www.scstatehouse.gov/cgi-bin/zipcodesearch.exe

Thank you!

Here is the letter I sent to my representatives:

Dear Representative Ott:

It has come to my attention that there is action pending from our illustrious Governor Mark Sanford to cut funding for both public libraries and public television (ETV). Services I’m almost positive he’s never needed to use, but a vast majority of South Carolina’s citizens do use and depend upon on a daily basis. While the sad state of our economy is forcing many hard decisions, I don’t understand how these funding cuts will benefit our state or our citizens.

Public libraries are a refuge for many people who have been hurt financially by the economy. The library provides entertainment (books, DVDs, CDs, storytime, etc.) as well as programs to assist the homeless and unemployed (resume writing, interviewing skills, money management, tax services, etc.) The library provides services and materials and works with public schools, colleges, and universities to assist students and educators. Cutting funding, specifically Veto #31 and Veto #92, will also jeopardize our state receiving federal funds such as Federal LSTA funding. Local/County funding alone cannot support an adequate library system, much less the exemplary ones I’ve been fortunate to use so far in my years as a South Carolina resident: Richland County Public Library, Orangeburg Public Library, and ABBE Public Library.

Public television (ETV) provides technology training and learning for education, public safety, and local government. ETV is an asset to our educational, cultural, and economic development. Cutting funding would mean valuable TV, online, and radio broadcast programs would have to be eliminated. The services they provide to our schools – both on air and via school visits – would also be reduced and/or eliminated.

On a personal level, the economy has affected my own ability to make ends meet. I utilize both the public library and ETV to help save money. I patronize the library for professional as well as pleasure reading, since I can’t afford to buy books. Inter Library Loan is wonderful at finding me the professional books I need to stay current. I borrow movies since the cost of movie admission is exorbitant for a family outing. My students and I use the databases provided by both the public library and through DISCUS in our research projects.

As a library media specialist, I utilize the free ETV technology workshops at the ETV studios, as well as those given at conference and through ETV site workshops, to keep myself and my fellow teachers up to date in areas of technology and best practices. I can’t afford to take college classes and even the tech school classes are out of my price range. I/We also use the ETV programming in our school to supplement and compliment our curriculum; thereby saving money to spend on more pressing funding needs.

In short, cutting funding for public libraries and ETV would be devastating to the people of South Carolina. Please support libraries and ETV by not allowing these budget cuts to be passed.

And since you’ve gotten this far, how about stop cutting the education budget, too! It is bleeding and on life support already.

Sincerely,

Heather Loy

I also sent one to Senator Hutto.  Feel free to use/adapt if you want.  I wasn’t very politically correct, in fact I was a bit snarky, but this whole situation is getting out of hand.  I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat, or a part of any party, but by gosh, we need to stop the insanity.  Raise taxes and put education funding back as part of property tax and not sales tax.  So what if people complain about paying school tax when they don’t have kids.  Or library tax and they are fortunate enough not to have to patronize the public library.  The kids they support through taxes will one day be the politician, bankers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, police and rescue workers all working/supporting us.  I don’t know about you, but I’d sure want the doctor of my future to have the best darn education he/she can have and that I can help pay for so I receive the best of care.  How about you?  And whose is to say this economy isn’t going to get so much worse that you’ll loose your job and need to cut back on your cable, ISP, movie night out, and book buying habits?  You’ll sure be glad the public library is around then now wont you?

Good News/Bad News

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I was going through my drafts and realized I hadn’t posted this one yet.  I wrote it back on Sept. 21st.

At the end of the last school year, our district media specialists met with our Superintendent to share the results of an analysis on the state of our library collections (both individual school data as well as the district as a whole).  As you can imagine, the data wasn’t pretty.  Basically, we all have to greatly weed our collections and some major money has to be allocated to allow us to purchase new materials.  Not a shocker.

The Superintended WAS shocked and promptly shared this information with the school board and area superintendents, which in turn trickled down to our principals.  Cool! My new principal came to me at the beginning of the school year and wanted a plan of action from me on how I was going to weed and discard the books indicated by the analysis.  He also wants a library needs assessment.  Fabulous!  I hadn’t yet begun to hit him up for money for the library yet!  Of course, there is no additional funding at this time, but hey, we can’t fix this problem overnight and the fact that he came to me at all is wonderful.

Anyhoo, my library analysis says that my overall collection age is 1991 and that I need to weed 1,796 books and add ZERO to raise my overall collection age to 1994 and reach our states “Emerging” status.  To reach “Proficient” status, I need to weed 2,172 books and add 918 more books to reach a collection age of 1997.  Of course, what the analysis doesn’t say is that when I took over the library six years ago, the average collection age was 1979.   I’ve already removed a couple (or three) thousand outdated books.

But the fact that the powers that be don’t realize what I’ve already accomplished isn’t why I’m discouraged.  What bothers me is the “figures” that the analysis show.  By saying I “only” need to add 918 books, it limits what I’ll potentially receive in additional funding.  Plus, those numbers are based upon an average book cost of around $25, which anyone in library purchasing will tell you is not nearly enough when you’re buying non-fiction and reference titles.  In addition, what bugs me the most is that these numbers are based solely upon the number of students at my school….the school should have x number of books per student.  Well, la, te, da.  It doesn’t matter how many students my school has enrolled.  I still need the SAME books as every other high school in the district.  Even though I only have 355 students, I still need the same sets of reference books to cover all of those research papers and projects that the big high schools do!

Whining aside, here is what I plan to do: I plan to bring this topic up at our high school media specialist meeting to see if we, as a group, can raise the issue with our parent organization and in turn with the Superintendent.  You see, it’s not just my high school that this short sightedness will effect.  The other high school in my area, also a rural school, only has 250 students, so she’ll probably be receiving even less money than us.  I’m hoping that we can come up with a core collection list that all high schools should have then fight for the funding that will allow each school to receive that collection.

I know that there is no quick fix for me or the rest of our school libraries.  The state of our libraries is abysmal and a ton of money will need to be allocated.  With the budgeting shortfall in the district and across the state, nothing is likely to happen in the near future.  But just the fact that the powers that be are aware of the problem and are making steps in the right direction gives me hope.

Update 10/16/08: I found out this week that the library budgets have been halved!  And I haven’t even begun to spend mine so I’ll loose almost all of my funding.  Usually, I’ve spent most of it by the end of August, just for this reason.  Since the June meeting and the way my principal came to me, I let my guard down and wasn’t in as big a hurry to spend the money.  Guess that will teach me! *sigh*