The Atlantic School District’s Board of Education, Monday night, approved an early retirement package similar to that which was offered last year at this time. Superintendent Dr. Michael Amstein says the incentive allows the district to pay a third party vendor for insurance for all of the retirees over a three year period.

Amstein says last year they offered their certified staff an early retirement package. About a dozen of the staff accepted the incentive, which saved the district about one-half millions dollars on its payroll. He says they looked at offering it this year as a means of further reducing the budget for the 2015-2016 school year.

The Atlantic School Board also discussed their Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Priorities. Amstein said the discussion was a continuation of talks held during the Board’s Oct. 27th special work session, and formal approval of those objectives.

During the Board’s October meeting, Dr. Amstein led a discussion on decision analysis using the Trego Education Forum process. He also gave the board sample budget objectives, allowing them to set parameters for budget cuts and builds structure into the decision making process. The board will first set criteria and objectives and then weight the criteria on scale from 1-10. The board chose 9 objectives and weighted them.

The objectives chosen were: Comply with state and federal mandates; minimize impact on instructional programs; minimize impact on safety; minimize impact on student learning/achievement; minimize impact on district reputation; minimize impact on upkeep of current facilities; minimize impact on instructional tech support; minimize impact on fewest numbers of students; minimize impact on ability to effectively manage programs.