County school budget woes may lead to layoffs

Published 6:30 am Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Financial woes continue to plague the Limestone County school system, forcing the school board to consider a proposal that would eliminate more than 30 positions throughout the district.

Tommy Hunter, executive director of human resources and operations for Limestone County schools, outlined the proposed personnel cuts during a work session Monday.

According to the proposal, 16 general education teachers, one maintenance worker, three information technology facilitators (ITFs), several support positions tied to the Central Office and 12 special education aides would be let go. Hunter said the layoffs would be “strategic” and would not target “first-, second- and third-year teachers only.”

Several board members objected to the teacher cuts, including Earl Glaze and Bradley Young, who questioned why teacher positions were being eliminated when the Central Office employed an estimated nine secretaries.

“It’s kind of a running joke in the schools that the secretaries have secretaries here (at Central Office),” Glaze said. “Where I work, we have one secretary who answers to three department heads. She handles a lot of stuff and is busy all day long. I think I’d rather focus our money on the schools than secretaries with secretaries.”

Hunter said the current plan does not eliminate any secretarial positions at the Central Office, describing their role in the school system as “crucial.”

“I don’t know one that doesn’t work extremely hard during the day and will sometimes take their work home, like tonight, for example,” he said. “In my opinion, they are crucial, but we can cut (some secretaries), but this is our proposal.”

Board member Bret McGill said layoffs should be based on the value of the position as opposed to how hard an individual may work.

“I don’t think there’s anyone sitting around and loafing,” he said. “We have to start prioritizing jobs and say this job is more valuable to educating students than this other job if we are going to make any real cuts. Bottom line, if that job doesn’t trace directly back to that kid in that classroom, then we need to evaluate if we should cut a position or not.”

If the board votes to eliminate teachers, Elkmont High School would lose two, Ardmore High one, Tanner High two, Tanner Elementary one, Clements High two, East and West Limestone three each, Sugar Creek Elementary two and Piney Chapel Elementary one.

Blue Springs Elementary would gain a teacher.

Creekside Primary and Elementary, Cedar Hill Elementary, Johnson Elementary and the Limestone County Career Technical Center would not be affected.

Art and music classes for county sixth-graders would also be eliminated in the proposed cuts.

“None of this is good,” Hunter said. “If it were up to me, we wouldn’t eliminate any positions. This is the best we could come up with.”

Glaze said he is concerned that teacher cuts will increase classroom size, bringing the quality of education down.

“I understand we’re financially in a bind, but if we start putting more kids in the classroom, we’re going to start getting phone calls from concerned parents,” he said. “We’ve seen this happen in the past. It’s not fair to our kids.”

ITF cuts

The number of ITFs working in county schools would drop from nine to six, according to the proposed personnel cuts. Hunter said the remaining six ITFs would be placed in the county’s high schools because the role of the ITF has shifted from being strictly technology facilitators to instructors. Moving ITF support to schools like Tanner, Elkmont and Clements, where they only have one assistant principal, will be particularly helpful, said Brad Lewis, executive director of curriculum and instruction.

Two of the three ITFs would be moved to another position within the district, while the third would most likely be let go, Hunter said.

The remaining six ITFs would see their contracts reduced from 10 to nine months for the fiscal 2018-2019 school year, Hunter said.

A contracted testing coordinator position would also be eliminated by the proposed cuts, leaving teachers and administrators with the added responsibilities at testing time.

Possible school closing

Glaze and McGill broached the idea of closing Piney Chapel Elementary to save money by consolidating personnel and eliminating building maintenance. The estimated 190 students at Piney Chapel would go to nearby schools like Elkmont High School, Hunter said.

“Why in the world would we keep a school open when they only have 190 students?” McGill asked. “Are we asking the hard questions? Are we looking at every possible solution that is the best solution for the system? Not just for this year, but for the next five to 10 years?”

Hunter said it could be done, but it would take redrawing district lines and moving special needs programs to schools that have space.

Additional cuts

In addition to slashing personnel, officials at several of the school district’s departments have agreed to tighten their belts. Steve Wallace, director of maintenance, cut $116,000 from his overall budget. Hunter said he could trim $62,000 from his budget, and Allison Usery, director of federal programs, was able to lop off $41,685 from her budget.

The district would save approximately $1.7 million by cutting personnel and another $1.28 million through miscellaneous, Central Office and departmental cuts, amounting to just short of $3 million total, said Kim McPherson, a school financials specialist with the Alabama Association of School Boards.

Further minor cuts will be made to the travel budgets of the board and superintendent, and plans are in the works to push internal school audits to Chief School Financial Officer Kimberly Hubbard. Previously, the district contracted with an outside accounting firm to conduct those audits.

Despite the proposed savings, McPherson said they won’t be able to restore the district’s fund balance for at least three years. The board hired McPherson earlier this year to mentor Hubbard and to review the district’s budget.

The state requires all school districts to maintain at least a month’s worth of operating funds in reserve. For Limestone County Schools, one month equals $5.9 million. However, that number will increase this year to approximately $6.5 million because of a 2.5-percent teacher raise recently approved by the Alabama Legislature. Currently, the district has less than half of one month’s operating budget in reserve.

McPherson also pointed out slow revenues are affecting the budget negatively.

“We should be up to 55 percent by the end of this of month, compared to 61 percent last year,” she said. “We are 5 to 6 percent behind last year.”

Ultimately, if these expansive cuts are approved, the nearly $3 million in savings will go back into the general fund, where it will go toward restoring the fund balance.

Board member Ed Winters said the system may not have to make all of the cuts in the proposal if they decide to build up the fund balance at a slower pace. Increased access to mental health care and student laptop options were also discussed during the work session. These issues will be covered in a future issue of The News Courier.

Documents blocked

The News Courier’s request for documents from the public work session were denied by the district. Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent Cherry Campbell cited legal counsel from the AASB in an email that contained the following statement: “If the documents related to what you MIGHT do to address this problem, the documents aren’t public. They would be considered the superintendent/CSFO’s ‘thought process.’ Once there’s a formal recommendation for a new budget or plan about what to do about personnel and the board votes on those recommendations, those formal recommendations (and any documents underlying them) would be made public then.”

Waiting until after a vote is problematic because it excludes the public from taking part in the deliberative process, said Dennis Bailey, a legal expert with the Alabama Press Association who was contacted by The News Courier Tuesday.

“This is obviously not the best thing for the public,” Bailey said. “Taken to its logical extreme, the public would never see a document until it’s too late for them to comment on it or do anything about it.”