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Revised edition
School Board rethinks proposed budget
By ALEXANDRA CALDWELL
Article published on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 |
PINELLAS COUNTY – Of all the proposed budget cuts, the Pinellas County School Board finds the possible 1.5 percent pay cut the hardest to swallow. The original proposal called for a 2 percent pay cut.
“That’s the part of the proposal that gives me the most pause,” said board chairwoman Nancy Bostock, “and I think if there’s any possible way to avoid it or minimize it, mitigate it in some way, we need to look at that. Our options are pretty limited, but the board did put out a few ideas that we’re going to investigate.”
Due to Florida legislative budget adjustments and declining enrollment, Pinellas County faces a projected absolute loss of $27.8 million for the 2008-2009 school year and the board needs to cut about $43 million total.
Superintendent Clayton Wilcox and his budget team released a proposed budget April 29. The board hopes to make a quick decision, but workshops May 1 and May 6 revealed that there will be more discussion before any of the cuts are finalized.
Proposed areas for cuts
Wilcox and the budget committee have worked for months to suggest a budget that maintains the committee’s priorities. These are to maintain the focus on students and learning; honor the required class size reductions; uphold commitments to the arts, student activities, and career, technical and vocational education; try to maintain continued employment for the current team; continue to improve student learning; and position the district to withstand future economic downturns.
The latest proposed cuts are a 1.5 percent pay reduction for all employees, eliminating 147 positions, reassigning 170 positions, canceling some programs and service provider contracts, and closing an alternative school.
Bostock said they will try to keep most of the job cuts at the administrative level, and hopefully natural turnover will soften this blow.
“That’s not necessarily layoffs,” Bostock said. “We have 16,000 employees in the district and we have a fair amount of natural turnover – people moving, people retiring, staying at home for a couple of years to raise their children. We get vacancies every year. So as much as possible, the positions we reduce won’t necessarily be layoffs because we’ll take the good people that we have and transfer them into an existing position. We’ve done it before where we’ve done it without layoffs.”
The budget proposal that includes the 1.5 percent pay cut would fully fund the increase in cost of health insurance. Normally the board pays 80 percent of employees’ health insurance and the employees pay 20 percent, but this would bring that to an 83/17 percent split.
At the May 6 workshop the budget committee presented two other models that would make the pay cut either 1.1 percent or zero, but that would reduce the amount the board pays for health insurance to an 80/20 or 75/25 split respectively. According to these models, most employees, including the lowest-paid people, would benefit from the original proposal of the 83/17 percent split and the 1.5 pay cut.
No matter what, the cuts will hurt, so Bostock hopes for a swift decision.
“We hope to make some final decisions quickly because we know that this has a great impact on our employees, and we want to let them know just how bad the news is and how it’s going to affect them soon,” Bostock said. “Then they can start to accommodate it in their lives rather than later when it could have a larger impact on them.”
For many board members, this year’s cuts feel too much like the massive cuts of 1991. Board member Jane Gallucci said she feels sick that the government slashed education funding. Since it’s ultimately the board’s decision to approve the budget, sometimes she’ll wake up at night wondering what she should do.
“It’s gut-wrenching,” Gallucci said. “I mean you take 10 steps forward and 22 steps backwards. We went through this in ’91. That’s what some of us were lamenting about. And some of the positions that were cut in ’91 have never come back in the high schools.”
There will be a School Board meeting May 13 at the Administration Building, 301 Fourth St. S.W., Largo.
Summary of changes
New budget developments from the May 6 School Board workshop include the following.
- Total budget cuts possibly reduced to $37 million from $43 million
Pay cut and health insurance cost options discussed:
- Option 1: fully fund insurance cost increase, so the board would pay 83 percent of employees’ health insurance costs and employees pay 17 percent. All employees would take a 1.5 percent pay cut. According to charts, this option would benefit the most employee categories, including those who are paid the least.
- Option 2: Board pays 80 percent of health insurance, employee pays 20 percent. Employees would have to pay more than last year for health insurance due to the insurance company’s rate hikes. All employees would take a pay cut of 1.1 percent
- Option 3: Board pays 75 percent of health insurance, employee pays 25 percent. Salaries would stay the same as they were this year.
A new budget proposal would have the maximum pay cut be 1.5 percent, versus the original two percent proposal
Originally, hourly employees would have had their hours reduced to 7.5 a day from eight. This has been eliminated. They would keep their eight hour days and take the same pay cut as everyone else.
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Article published on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
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