St. Paul schools lose students, reduce budget

Losing nearly 1,500 students has a funny way of messing up a budget.

The St. Paul school board on Tuesday recommended a $628 million budget for 2008-09 -- about $8 million less than what the schools would spend if everything had stayed the same from last year. But everything has not stayed the same and the biggest whammy is more than $7 million in lost per-pupil revenues because St. Paul's school-age population is declining and more of the city's existing students are choosing charter schools.

School officials said that if St. Paul had maintained its 2007-08 enrollment, the district would have actually seen its state general fund revenue go up more than $8 million.

In school districts, students equal money -- money to pay teachers, money to fund programs, and money to keep buildings open. School enrollments throughout the metropolitan area have been dropping over the past couple years.

At the high school level, drops have forced school boards to cut teachers and change or close programs.

St. Paul's decline of 1,441 pupils from last year is no exception. The district is changing several programs next fall, the most dramatic of which is discontinuing Homecroft Elementary School as a neighborhood school in Highland Park.

Although St. Paul schools officials said they need to eliminate an $8 million deficit, they are cutting only about $7 million. They are spending down reserves to make up the difference, and they were helped by an additional $2.3 million from the state.

That money was a last-minute increase of $51 per pupil in state funding -- just before the recent session of the Legislature ended.

The school board met as a committee of the board Tuesday, essentially making a recommendation to itself. The board is scheduled to give final formal approval to the 2008-09 budget at its June 17 meeting.

Over the past year, the St. Paul schools have enacted several program changes for the coming school year in an effort to stem the loss of enrollment and attract new students to the district.

Expanding popular programs at Farnsworth Aerospace Elementary Magnet School and Linwood A-Plus Elementary into nearby junior high schools to create dual-campus K-8 programs in aerospace and the arts was one such move. So was putting new boys' and girls' academies into North End Elementary and putting a program focusing on careers in science and health at Washington Technology Middle School and Arlington High School. And St. Paul's Humboldt High School and Humboldt Junior High School will become a 7-12 program focusing on the environment and career preparation.

The idea, said St. Paul schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen, is to reverse the declining enrollment trend by creating or expanding high-demand programs. Several St. Paul schools have bucked the budget decline, seeing a boost in their enrollments or budget from last school year.

Among high schools, St. Paul Johnson has seen the biggest budgetary gain, picking up another $859,000 -- although much of the increase is due to having a higher percentage of students living in poverty.

At the junior high or middle school level, one of the biggest budget gainers was Monroe, which is pairing with the popular Linwood program and increasing its enrollment.

James Walsh • 651-298-1541