AURORA | It’s not easy to find a silver lining in the budget constrictions facing local districts for the 2012-13 school year.

Even after the state Legislature approved a school financing act in April that kept per-pupil funding flat at around $6,474, districts are planning for increasing costs on a number of fronts. For the Aurora Public Schools and Cherry Creek School districts, there are anticipated hikes in employer contributions to the state’s Public Employees’ Retirement Association, increases in energy costs and inevitable rises in health-care costs.

“We know that we’ll continue to have increases in cost. We know that PERA will go up again, we know that health-care costs will go up some,” said Mary Lewis, president of the APS Board of Education. “The Legislature has to do more than just not give us a cut.”

Indeed, rising costs make the prospect of a static funding structure from the state for the 2012-13 year feel flat, even after steady years of budget cuts from the state level. At Cherry Creek, the pressure of a per-pupil funding rate that’s roughly equivalent to 2007 levels spurred the board to give their early approval to a bond election in November, a ballot issue that would generate an estimated $125 million for school improvements and other projects at schools across southeastern Aurora.

The budget process is at a different phase at APS, where board members are still looking for public feedback before they enter final stages of approval for next year’s budget. A public town hall meeting is scheduled for June 5 at the district’s Professional Learning and Conference Center and will serve as a forum where parents, teachers and other community members can offer inputs about looming cuts. APS administrators have cited the need to trim $5 million from next year’s budget. By law, the APS board must vote to adopt the proposed budget before the end of the month.

“It’s an open workshop,” Lewis said. “It’s an opportunity … We’ve made the offer. We haven’t done that in the past, not in a formal board meeting.”

The forum is likely to draw some critical feedback from members of the Aurora Education Association. In May, APS Superintendent John Barry posted on the district website that the Board of Education and the AEA had reached an “impasse” on the issue of compensation.

Citing rising rates of inflation and millions of dollars worth of increased costs, the board has indicated that the 2012-13 school year won’t see any opportunities for pay increases for full-time employees. Barry addressed the issue in a district-wide e-mail sent to APS staff before the end of the school year.

“While the state has not cut into our budget for next year like they did this year (good news), they have not provided one penny more than we have this year in revenues. With no additional revenue, a $5 million bill in increased costs and the 3.7 percent inflation increase, unfortunately, there are no additional funds to provide pay increases,” Barry said in the e-mail, adding that the 2012-13 is likely to see a slight decrease in enrollment. “At this time, we are projecting an overall enrollment decline of 1.1 percent. This total enrollment decline … includes the loss of more than 900 students who had been attending the APS Options home school program,” he said, citing the fact that other metro districts have implemented other versions of the program.

According to the results of surveys distributed to parents and staff across the district, some of the more extreme cost-saving measures that have been implemented at other districts in the metro area won’t hit APS in 2012-13. The district won’t start charging for bus service, class size won’t increase dramatically and the district is likely to avoid implementing furlough days, a prospect that more and more survey respondents seem to have accepted as an inevitable fallout of tough budget conditions.

Still, the salary issue is bound to be a sticking point as negotiations continue in the coming weeks.

“The hardest part for the school board is not being able to fund … general salary increases, to go another year without being able to give salary increases to our employees,” Lewis said. “That’s the hardest part.”

The budget workshop is scheduled for 6 p.m. on June 5 at the Professional Learning and Conference Center, 15771 E. 1st Ave. in Aurora.

Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com or 720-449-9707