First draft of new schools budget cuts 200 positions

A net total of 209 school district staff positions have been eliminated in the first draft of the 2009-2010 Metro Nashville Public Schools operating budget — including the proposed cuts of approximately 100 teachers.

This is a very early edition of the budget, school district leaders emphasized, and a large number of factors are not included. Board of Education Finance Chair Steve Glover said he expects the budget to change continually through June.

“I want to emphasize the word ‘draft,’” Glover said, at a board finance committee meeting Wednesday. “Every member of our staff is a valued member of the staff.”

The budget is based on several “uncertainties,” he said. For starters, school district officials still don’t how much revenue will be received from local and state government sources, though the expectation is that funding will remain flat — rather than increasing, as has been the case in recent years. The budget ramifications of the federal economic stimulus package have not been determined.

In addition, new Director of Schools Jesse Register plans to roll out a plan next month for reorganizing the central office. Register started work in Nashville Jan. 15, and has planned to work here for 90 days before presenting a district reform plan to the school board and to the public. That plan will include moves to increase “efficiencies” in the central office and redirect resources to classrooms, Register said Wednesday.

“It’s an organization for efficiency,” Register said after Wednesday’s meeting. “It will include some downsizing.”

The first draft of the budget details a little more than $15 million of increased and new expenditures, as well as a little more than $15 million in cuts.

The district rezoning plan, passed over the summer, brings both cuts and savings. New cost expenditures will be directed toward salary step increases for certificated and support staff, inflationary expenses, and changes in employee benefits.

Positions for teachers and other staff are added by the opening of the Diploma Plus School and expansion of the Big Picture School.

Big cuts, however, are made by eliminating 66 custodial positions, as well as through a reduction of teaching positions using a new staffing formula.

The budget draft cuts 130 teaching positions, but with the addition of other teaching jobs elsewhere, the net teacher cut is about 100. Register said staffing formula changes are focused on high schools and intended to align staff deployment with the actual number of students served. If, for example, a teacher of a specialty class has a small number of students, the district will look closely at ways to adjust staffing.

Officials said they believe the majority of the discussed teaching cuts could be accomplished through natural attrition.

Stephen Henry, of teachers’ union the Metro Nashville Education Association (MNEA), said his organization has confidence in Register’s leadership. The climate is different from “in years past,” Henry said, and union members expect to work collaboratively with Register.

Henry also said he believes the administration’s goal is to make use of resources by structuring programming around staff rather than the other way around, and that administrators are working to accomplish the discussed position cuts without layoffs.

“We have every confidence in Dr. Register, and will work with him and with his administration, with the board, the mayor and the Council, in looking at what we need to do collectively to fix the problems that we face,” Henry said. “A school system is mostly people. It can’t not impact personnel.”

The first draft of next year’s budget did not include estimates for how much should be pulled from reserve funds, non-recurring dollars that have been used in the last few years to help pay for recurring expenses in the operating budget. Glover said a “meaningful discussion” of reserve use should be expected after concrete state and local funding levels are known.

But reserve funds may not be able to significantly relieve cuts for next year. Sales tax revenue shortfalls this year have put additional pressure on officials both to cut expenditures and to use reserve dollars. MNPS currently has $52 million in the reserve fund after tapping the fund for $19 million to date this school year, according to Glover.

Glover estimates another $10 million will need to be pulled by the end of the school year, bringing the projected balance down to $42 million. Metro charter recommends that department reserve funds maintain balances equal to 5 percent of the total operating budget, which means MNPS needs to keep about $31 million in reserves, Glover said.

The district is currently aiming to present a budget for board approval by the end of March. Then the budget will be passed along to the Mayor’s Office, and finally to Metro Council, in time for the next fiscal year.