If the Jefferson City school district's 2017-18 budget is thought of as a big pie, then there were some individual financial slices that didn't quite fit into Wednesday's report but that parents and staff might still find important.
For example, meal prices at school will not change in the coming year.
"The prices will remain $2.50 at the elementary schools and $2.75 at the secondary schools for lunch, and breakfast prices will remain $1.10 at the elementary schools and $1.25 at the secondary schools," the budget report reads.
The budget predicts the district's school nutrition services department will run a balanced budget in 2017-18, even with $100,000 worth of new equipment.
In terms of the previously reported increases in staff salaries across the district, the budget also "adds some money to fix some glaring issues of underpayment for speech pathologists, occupational therapists (OTs), physical therapists (PTs), physical therapist assistants and school nurses."
At the Board of Education's meeting in May, the district's director of special services Sheila Logan said the district has been chronically understaffed in terms of nurses, OTs and PTs for years. "A lot of our nurses, we're working about 70 percent of a full-time job as far as hours, and it's still not enough to get them to choose us over the doctors' offices and the hospitals," Logan said of the competetion the district faces in hiring medical staff, especially given the number of healthcare facilities in nearby Columbia.
"When we have maternity leaves, our staff are having to work over-time just to cover one another, and these are for services that kids have in their IEPs, so we're mandated to provide the service. And if it weren't for the quality of staff we have, who are willing to forego planning times and evaluation times and do them after hours, we would be in a real bind as far as providing services to children that we are legally obligated to give," she explained.
Given those concerns, the district's chief financial and chief operating officer Jason Hoffman said a line item in the 2017-18 budget provides $150,000 to specifically increase compensation for school nurses, OTs and speech language pathologists.
Hoffman said while the district is still at a competitive disadvantage in the market compared to area healthcare providers seeking to hire such staff, the coming year's budget offers some improvement.
The budget also includes an 8 percent reduction in health insurance premiums for staff Hoffman previously recommended to the board.
The reduction comes after four years of no rate increases in premiums for district staff.
Hoffman said he couldn't quantify in any dollar amount how much savings come from an 8 percent reduction for an average employee; that all depends on which plan a staff member has and how many dependents like a spouse or children are on the plan.