The Atlantic Community School District’s Board of Education is looking for ways to cut $650,000 from next year’s budget. Superintendent Dr. Michael Amstein told KJAN News during a work session Monday night, the Board gave the district’s Administrative team instructions to look at all areas where savings might be made.

Amstein says they’ve been in the process of trying to reduce costs for the current school year, which will impact this year’s budget. He says they believe they will come in under the amount they had targeted to spend. Amstein says over 80-percent of their budget is for personnel, and that’s “Certainly an area we’re going to have to take a look at.” Fortunately, he says the district received a TLC (Teacher Leadership and Compensation) Planning Grant for the 2015-2016 school year in the amount of $450,000, which allows them to move some people into instructional leadership positions.

So that may make it easier, by not having to replace those positions, but cuts will come from every department across the district. Last year, the district proposed $800,000 in cuts. Amstein says “With this on top of it, it’ll be almost $1.5-million dollars in cuts over the past two years,” and that they will have to “Turn every stone, now.”

Amstein says that money is already spent though, and can’t be used for anything else within the district. Amstein says this is the first time during his 5-years he’s served the district that they’ve had a true four-percent increase in educational funding, and it’s hard to keep up with just the cost of doing business each year when funding doesn’t meet the needs of the school district.

In addition, a miscalculation by the Iowa Department of Revenue will result in the Atlantic School District having to pay back more than $70,000 it received in overpayment from the state sales tax. The mistake was traced back to a faulty computer program that could not handle as much sales tax revenue as was collected last summer. The error affects school infrastructure projects.

Amstein said it won’t impact the Atlantic District as much as it would a smaller district, because it will be paid back over time, and will likely be accomplished by reducing the payments the district receives for the rest of this year.