OUR TURN: No sacred cows in balancing the Marble Falls ISD budget

It’s no secret the Marble Falls Independent School District faces a deep deficit — $3.2 million — caused in part by a multibillion-dollar shortfall at the state level.

Board President Martin McLean recently noted that all options are on the table to put the district back in the black, including unpopular ideas such as closing Spicewood Elementary School, which has never met enrollment projections.

However, some of the district’s administrators are instead saying there is absolutely no chance Spicewood would close.

How sad. We say this not because we disagree with their desire to keep Spicewood open, but because now is not the time to make such blanket statements. This is not the moment to refuse to see all the possibilities to balance the district’s budget — including distasteful ones like closing an elementary school.

Folks, it’s time to wake up and smell the eraser dust. These are dark times for Texas government financing and Texas schools.

Round Rock ISD announced this week it might have to lay off hundreds of teachers. Austin ISD has said cuts could be even more painful, with a thousand personnel let go and campuses closing. And staffers are being dismissed from the Texas Education Agency.

These circumstances do not bode well for Central Texas schools. Let us hope and pray what is happening in those districts and TEA is not a harbinger of what is to come for MFISD.

But at the same time, let’s not be intransigent in our thinking. Let’s not hear bureaucrats speak in absolutes. Phrases such as “zero chance of happening” should be banned.

MFISD leaders must do exactly the opposite. They must, as McLean said, put everything on the table. There can be no sacred cows. Everything should be in the open, and McLean is to be commended for being honest enough to say so.

Certainly no one wants Spicewood Elementary to close. No one wants to see classrooms at MFISD’s other elementaries become crowded as the schools try to absorb 200-plus new students — though spread across three campuses, the impact wouldn’t be that bad.

Yet at the same time, no one wants to see the district disappear down the kind of hole created by a $3.2 million deficit.

And if takes closing Spicewood to keep the district in the black, then MFISD staff and McLean’s colleagues on the School Board should not dismiss such a cost-saving measure out of hand, no matter how onerous. The same goes for canceling athletics, suspending extracurricular programs or any other measures that would keep the school district solvent.

These kinds of hard decisions are made every day in the private sector, where market forces dictate whether a business remains in the black or closes. When money is tight, services have to be interrupted and sometimes personnel have to be let go.

Historically, government and tax-supported agencies — which spend other people’s money — have had a hard time coming to grips with this reality.

Well, welcome to the real world, where sacrifices have to be made.

MFISD administrators are good people dealt a bad hand by the state budget shortfall, but they also must realize now is not the time to speak in absolutes and dig in their heels.

Anyone who has children in MFISD or owns property in MFISD also is paying the salaries of administrators and faculty. We are, in effect, their bosses.

And bosses expect their employees to be flexible. To be adaptable. To be wise stewards of our money. To make the hard decisions and learn to live with them, so that the school district as a whole can survive and our children can continue to receive a quality education.

It is hoped the current policies of interim Superintendent Jim Boyle and his staff will work — downsizing through attrition, early-out bonus incentives for retiring staff and various cost-cutting initiatives. Those are progressive measures.

However, McLean was right when he said everything has to be on the table. He might not have made himself popular, but he is correct. And being right and doing the right thing are more important than declining to consider all the available choices.

No one is saying close Spicewood. No one wants Spicewood to shut down. It is a great school, ranked exemplary by the state.

But all tax-paying patrons of the district have a right to expect MFISD to carry out measures, no matter how painful, that will keep the whole district from sliding into financial oblivion.