For Schools: Doomsday Is Close Enough to Touch and Smell It

This won’t make the job-threatened employees of the School District feel better, but they may take small consolation in the knowledge that the denouement is nearer.

After yesterday afternoon’s unorthodox School Board meeting, called to demystify the course the five lay people need to steer in the next few weeks, Board President Scott Zeidman reached two conclusions:

“a) We still don’t know how bad the cuts are going to be, and

“b) It’s going to be bad.”

It is anticipated $2.5 million in budget cuts will need to be made this month and/or next. But the dimensions and names of the trims are in as much flux as the ever-changing state and school budgets.

At its next meeting in a fortnight, Tuesday, April 26, the School Board is expected to vote on the future of the 19.2 teaching positions that — with increasing vigor and anger — have been tossed back and forth across the labor negotiating table the last couple of months. Since five to 10 teachers retire in an average year and others move away, this natural movement could protect half of the positions. The balance would be determined by the unpredictable, wildly careening state budget.

“The budget (school and state) always is in flux,” Mr. Zeidman told the newspaper. “Because we have to meet certain requirements, we have to take the facts as we know them today. Today the 19.2 are out (or could be). Tomorrow, who knows?

“If there is co-operation from the labor unions, if things don’t get any worse than they are, there will be an ability to bring back some teachers.”

Does “cooperation” mean union concessions?

“Cooperation means cooperation,” Mr. Zeidman said.

“I don’t know what a concession would be.”

Does “concession” mean furlough days?

“Furlough days will get us (only) so far.”

“We need cooperation from the labor unions,” he reiterated.

One of the two union presidents was present, Debbie Hamme of the Classifed Employees. She peppered the nine administrators and Board members seated around a four-square table in the center of the room with questions and showered them with pointed criticism.

Hardly a drop is left for her drained members to give back to the School District, she pleaded several times. “We gave five furlough days this year, and in benefits, we have gone from zero to absorbing huge increases. Mine has gone from zero to $200 a month.”

After two Board members said that being employed was crucial, no matter the amount of givebacks, Ms. Hamme said:

“Yes, it is important to have a job. But it also is important to have a job with which you can support yourself. We have only been giving back the last few years.

“I just want to keep what I am earning now.”

Steve Gourley, the crustiest Board member, who will retire at the end of the calendar year and his term, insisted that “the only way for the District to maintain stability and the present quality is for everyone to take less.”

“The problem is,” said Mr. Zeidman, “I am not trying to be coy, but I don’t know how bad the budget is.

“If you can tell me the budget is going to be cut $3 million, okay. I don’t like it, but then we could gear toward cutting $3 million. Instead, (the state is) saying ‘It’s about $3 million. But by the way, we might cut $3 million more. And if we cut you by $3 million, we may cut the school year by six weeks.’

“If the school year is cut by six weeks, I don’t have any answers. Are the labor unions going to require us to pay them the full amount, as if they had worked the whole year?

“Is the state going to pass a new law that says ‘we are cutting the school year by six weeks and by the way everybody gets cut six weeks, and take it to the Supreme Court if you don’t like it.’

“I don’t know what they are going to do, and I don’t know when there is going to be a new (state) budget.”

In yesterday’s slickly-run 61-minute meeting before a pocket-sized audience at the District Offices, Ali Delawalla, Asst. Supt. for Business, was billed as the main attraction. His task was to identify the administration’s notion of reductions.

“The number Ali is telling us we need to cut is $2.5 million, which will put us close to where we need to be,” Mr. Zeidman said. “That covers the 19.2 (teaching positions) plus what was proposed to us yesterday (see below) adds up to $2.5 million.

“If we were to get, say, $1 million worth of concessions from the labor unions, whether through furlough days, reductions, whatever, that means we could bring back — assuming nothing else changes — a million dollars worth of cuts.

“Once we identify the cuts, we are no longer saying, ‘If you don’t do this, we are going to do this.’ This is what is going to be cut. If they want some of them back, they need to give us concessions because we don’t have the ability to raise money.

“This is not like a business where you can raise your price. We can’t do that. All we can do is cut, based on the budget, and feel badly for everybody.”

Under the heading “Proposed Budget Deductions,” here is the paper Mr. Delawalla presented to the School Board, one dozen categories plus a suggested 13th.

1. Adult School. Reduce one Secretary II from12 months to 11, saving $5,000. Reduce Secretary III from 12 months to 11, $5,000. Reduce one Budget Secretary from 12 months to 11, $4,400. Reduce one aide from ILC from 24 hours to 20, $3,100.

12. Eliminate Regular Summer School — School Principal, $7,500; Middle School Secretary, $3,400; one Middle School teacher (English Learner Intervention); 11 high school teachers (High School Credit Recovery), $68,000.

Total savings: $841,600.

New total savings: $1,231,600.