JACKSONVILLE — The Jacksonville Independent School District Board of Trustees has already begun to make plans for a possible $2.7 million to $4.6 million reduction in the district's budget next year.

After a lengthy informational session in which JISD Superintendent Dr. Joe Wardell outlined what a $9.5 billion to $10 billion shortfall in statewide public education spending would do to JISD's budget specifically, Board members voted unanimously to begin an early notice resignation bonus program.

"I know it's dollars, but it will help us plan," Wardell said when explaining the program to the Board. "We're asking people who have already made that decision (to resign) to let us in on it. This will give us the very first piece of seeing what is out there, and we will continue to look at what can be done (to make budget cuts)."

The early notice resignation bonus is offered to the first 50 full-time professionals and first 50 full-time paraprofessionals who tender their resignation to the district between Feb. 9 and Feb. 25. The $500 bonus would then be paid at the end of the school year.

JISD Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Lindy Findley said knowing which positions will be vacated — and which will be refilled — will help personnel decisions later easier.

"We're trying to focus on the position, not the person, which is very difficult in a district our size, because you say the position and you see the face of the person," she said. "This makes dealing with this down the road much easier."

And with 85 percent of its total budget spent on personnel, it is almost inevitable to eliminate positions.

"We want personnel to be the very last thing we need to cut," Wardell said. "But this (early resignation bonus program) will help us plan."

He prefaced the budget information he presented by repeating a sentiment Gov. Rick Perry gave in his State of the State Address Tuesday.

"A portion of what he said is, 'We're going to ask schools to do more with less,'" Wardell said. "This is the first time I have seen proposed budgets ever start with less than was there the year before. Usually they start at the same amount and see what they can add to it."

Another daunting part of this year's budget process for the district is there is no way to know exactly how much will need to be cut from next year's expenses, and because other state issues are taking precedence over school funding, Wardell said it could be as late as July before the district knows exact figures.

He told Board members one of those other issues is redistricting. Wardell reminded trustees that the state's last efforts at redistricting 10 years ago sent the Legislature into multiple special sessions after several of its members left the state in order to protest the new district boundaries being drawn.

He said Sen. Robert Nichols told him the Republican Caucus, which met prior to the beginning of the session, estimated this year's Legislature would go into two to six extra sessions.

"All of you know we have to have a final budget by April, and we make personnel decisions in March or April," he said. "We don't have anything from the state at this point. We only have one projection at this point, from Moak and Casey Associates from Austin.”

He added this one projection is what the district needs to use to attempt to make the best budget possible, preparing for approximately $2 million to $3 million less than the current year's budget.

“I think it's more fiscally responsible to go ahead now and plan along the way,” he said. “No matter what decisions we make, we're not going to be correct. We're either going to be too conservative or not conservative enough, but because we don't know the parameters that are going to be in place, we won't be 100 percent perfect.”

He told trustees he has been asked by people what they should emphasize if they want to contact their state representative or senator about cuts in public school spending, to which Wardell said he gives a three-part response: 1. Don't cut education funding; 2. Use the state's $9.5 billion Rainy Day Fund instead of cutting $10 billion from public education; and 3. Set up a system to get public education funding away from the current target revenue system to a more equitable way to distribute money to schools.

“The answer to this is letting your representative and senator know how you feel,” said Trustee Joe Casey. “If you feel passionate about education, if they're not hearing from you, you should let them know how you feel.”