The school board will approve the FY13 budget on May 17. For now, it includes cutting 350 staff positions; increasing class sizes by two students and the number of furlough days from two to five; reducing the number of work days from 180 to 175; delaying raises for half a year; eliminating 50 library positions; reducing, and eventually eliminating, funding for Project 2400; and taking $21.5 million from the $99 million in reserves.
On Wednesday, Superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa announced that the district could avoid layoffs if 350 employees leave the district by retiring, moving or resigning, but they are currently about 200 short of that number.
There are 14,127 employees in the school system, not counting the seven school board members.
“Our resignations are not hitting the pace that we had intended for it to hit by this time,” he said. The district should know by the first week in May how many of the 350 won’t be returning next year.
The other biggest issues teachers are facing are the possibility of more furlough days, which Chief Financial Officer Mike Addison said could save the district $15.3 million, or about $3 million per day, and increasing classroom sizes, which could save $18.6 million.
According to the 2012-2013 school calendar, teachers would take furlough days Feb. 19 through 22 and May 30, 2013.
Board Member Lynnda Eagle, a former educator who has represented northwest Cobb since 2008, said she doesn’t think there is any real way to “fix” the budget deficit because fewer funds are coming in.
“If you compare CCSD to similar districts around Atlanta, it is evident that we are one of the more lean districts,” she said. “Our administrators make less than most metro districts, we have a smaller central office staff than most, we have provided school nurses before they were partially funded by other sources, we have highly qualified teachers dedicated to our students and we’ve done this and more with a much smaller budget than many of our neighboring districts.”
Eagle said she doesn’t support five furlough days, but would consider two or three, and has asked that the district think twice about reducing the number of media parapros and increasing class sizes.
“I am concerned that we are looking to our teachers to help reduce the budget,” she said.
Central Cobb’s board member Alison Bartlett believes that the district can get its “biggest bang for their bucks” by increasing the student to teacher ratio.
Bartlett said cutting jobs is tough, but the economic situation demands hard decisions.
“Their jobs are valuable, but where does the $60 million come from if not there?” she asked. “When I was first elected (in 2008), the budget was $1 billion. We’ve lost close to $200 million in general fund revenue since I was first elected.”
Board member Tim Stultz, who represents southeast Cobb, said the budget problems won’t end anytime soon.
“I have been advocating for hiring freezes for the past two years to help with the increasing expenses, especially with more difficult times ahead,” he said. “I don’t believe revenues are going to rise enough over the next few years to offset expenses.”
Stultz believes more severe cuts are yet to come.
“This current model is not sustainable. The new reality is that property values are lower and that the state can’t provide full funding,” he said. “The solution is to change the model of how to provide quality education, or continue to make cuts until your expenses are equal to your income.”
Vice Chair David Morgan, who represents southwest Cobb, thinks the answer could be to give individual schools the authority to make cuts where needed.
“At a particular school, there may be a bigger need for media parapros than for other positions,” he said. “I wish that people on the school level could make those decisions. I think also it’s a way to create even more ownership on that level as opposed to these mandates coming down from central office.”
Morgan said he’s put his proposal in writing to Hinojosa in recent weeks and said the superintendent told him that he would get back to him if his staff thought it would help.
But northwest Cobb’s David Banks doesn’t believe they are needed at all and has previously asked why the district doesn’t dip into its $99 million reserve to cover the deficit.
However, Addison said that, according to board policy, at least one month of expenses, about $70 million, must remain in the reserves at all times.
John Adams, the executive director of Educators First, said his members are anxious over the possibility of possible layoffs, fewer workdays and bigger class sizes.
“Everyone was laboring on the assumption that there wouldn’t be (layoffs),” he said. “Frankly, they don’t have a lot of faith in the board and central office’s ability to keep teachers from being cut.”
“They get that there need to be cuts, but this is a year that started off with pay raises in the central office,” Adams pointed out.
Adams suggested school board members cut their $20,800 salary equivalent to the number of furlough days and tell employees that they won’t approve any new pay raises or new positions at the central office while furlough days or pay cuts are a possibility.
“Share the sacrifice by absorbing the mathematical equivalent for their pay, or at the very least give it to the Cobb Schools Foundation to show that they feel the pain too,” he said. “That will help restore teachers’ trust.”
Since Monday, he’s received about 15 emails and phone calls from members asking about the budget.
But Connie Jackson, president of the Cobb County Association of Educators, said her phone hasn’t stopped ringing since Wednesday.
“I have received over 100 phone calls, emails, and Facebook messages since the announcement of the possible (layoffs),” she said.
Jackson said they are very upset and anxious about how the cuts will be made.
“We want to encourage the district to not make the cuts based on seniority, but rather on performance,” she said. “That way you don’t lose some of your brightest and youngest teachers.”
Jackson is also asking any employees who plan on leaving to let them know as soon as possible.
“If you aren’t coming back, please say it now, because you could save a teacher’s job,” she said.
Also, she said that if cuts were up to her, she’d look to non-SPLOST items.
“I think things should be looked at like new buses … (and) textbooks cuts,” she said. “Those are better than classroom teachers who impact student achievement. Don’t cut the front end before you cut the back.”
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You're much too busy being Kennesaw's village idiot
to have enough time left over for the CCSD.
County Employees want the taxpayer to pay ever increasing taxes to fund their job, benefits, and retirement...Cobb has to make due with a reasonable amount of taxes. Stop the never ending increasing of taxes which is taxpayer abuse!! Every level of government wants taxpayers to pay more and more...DO YOU GREEDY people actually hear yourself?? It scares me that most of you vote because you won't be happy until the government takes everything away from hard working tax paying citizens....renters should have to pay a fee to put their child in school too...how about stopping that free loading...or raise the tax rate on apartments ...i am good with either solution.
As for renters, they should already pay for property taxes through their rent. A good landlord will include property taxes in his/her rental calculation and will include this in the rent charged if the market will bear it.
What 'Senior Center' is the school system paying for? Doesn't exist. Renters pay rent to their landlords, who do pay property taxes. Ignorant argument. Teachers cannot legally administer medications to children, nurses can and are absolutely necessary. Need I go on?
You can't expect the same levels of service when teachers and public employees are absorbing the majority of budget cuts to these agencies.
Since you are opposed to taxes I hope you have the courtesy to NEVER step inside a public library, call the police or fire department in an emergency and I'm only assuming that you don't drive on public roads.
GREAT IDEA!!
If you have lost your love of teaching children...get a different job...if you still love it...STOP COMPLAINING!!
BTW, Taxpayers are not singing "kume by yah" with you over this tax abuse issue.
The current year budget is based on 20.0 mills, yet property tax bills are at 18.9 mills due to the 1.1 mill buy down from SPLOST.
By the way, and thankfully, the school board can't eliminate the senior tax exemption. The school board does not have that authority.
It's true a better solution has to be found for education funding. Again, we can return to societal issues. We, as a society, are more willing to pay for entertainment than education. Look at what we're willing to pay those that entertain us, but not willing to share the same for education. It's very scare indeed!
Your ignoirance is showing., IN real insurance, as you say, the patient pays a sey premium for his coverage. Sound familiar? That is how seniors have been payng for Medicare ever since its inceptions. And, we paid for it a long time before we were eleiogble to use it.
I can go along with you about the Senior Centers. How abour letting only those who use them pay for the libraries. And how about when you have a fire, the fire department bill, you in full, for all its expenses?
I would like to have the senior centers paid for by those that use them and my tax dollars not spent to subsidize them.
I would also like Medicare to be fully funded by something other than general tax revenues at 75%. How about we make it work like real insurance and have those on Medicare fully fund it? Then seniors would be paying their fair share!
I guess if we really want to be fair as Cobb Native points out, we should let only those people using Senior Centers pay for them, and we should not have Medicare funded by in any amount by general tax revenues. Those folks on Medicare should foot the entire bill. Just following Cobb native's flawed logic there....
Senior citizens have paid there fair share. Why do you want to up their taxes now, when they are on limited, fixed incomes? I am not a senior citizen but I am planning to be one in the future. If you want to be really fair, make only folks with students in the schools pay and give them a voucher and school choice.
It really is about making sure that the young have the same advantages that the elderly enjoyed when they received an education!
Re Ignorance and comments about "Campbell HS or Osborne HS", you must be ignorant of the fact that you aren't required to work at places like that if you don't want to. You can be replaced in a few hours.
A. Cut the big wigs salary as much as they are cutting the teacher's salary.
B. Get rid of the useless acamedic coaches in the school. It is an insult to all of us sport coaches to call them coaches. Since the beginning of the school year, I have seen them twice in my classroom. Most of the time they are in their huge office (a classroom that can be used for instruction and not their office) making lunch plans and talking on the phone. Oh wait - sorry. Once a month or so, they have to prove their worthiness by boring us to death on how to teach better. Hey - if you want to show us how to teach better, get your butts in the classroom and show us.
C. For all those soccer Moms and Dads that drive up in a $50,000 car and sparkling jewelry - get their child off of free breakfast and lunch as it is apparent they can pay for lunch, or at the very least, make something at home to bring in.
D. Get rid of the useless BOE folks. They are idiots and don't know their butt from their head. They make decisions based on who-knows-what, but sure as heck isn't in the best interest of our children.
E. Get rid of Hinojosa
I'm just sayin'
Let's hear some creative ideas for raising revenue.
As anyone who has ever run a business knows, you get what you pay for with respect to how you treat your employees. Sadly, given how we have treated our teachers and other pubilc servants lately, I wonder if people looking to relocate to Cobb County would not be better off looking at other areas which do value these things more than we seem to.
O.K. government haters-fire away while your property values continue to decline because our schools are no longer what outsiders want for their children. I hope you at least feel better, even if you are poorer.
The areas of cobb that have strong parental involvement continue to do extremely well - as they do whether the budget is up 20% or down 20%.
We - and essentially our entire neighborhood - moved to the neighborhood from other local school districts specifically because of the schools - and are glad we did.
I've heard this rant this year, the year before, the year before that, etc. from whining teachers. You know what, it hasn't happened, and it won't happen.
In fact, test scores continue to go up, as more pressure is applied to the teachers. Facts > Whines
1. Get rid of the parapros = Dump them yesterday
2. Det rid of the nurses = never should have had them.
3. Have 5 furlough days.
4. No pay raise
5. Have all CCSD employees pay 100% of their own retirement...in other words - no retirement funded by CCSD.
6. Eliminate banking vacation and sick days.
7. Increase the amount of co-pays by all CCSD employees.
8. Elect me (if I had the time) to the CCSD Board
Second, if you get rid of the nurses and a special needs or allergy riddled student gets seriously injured or dies the cost of the lawsuit would be more than the cost of the nurses for many years.
Retirement is controlled by the state. Secondly, Cobb does not pay any more into our retirement then the typical matching 401K. If you want to switch us to that type of plan, then fine--but you will need to start tiering pay to match the field one teaches in. So math teachers and science teachers at high school should get paid close to what outside math and science majors get paid per an hour.
Our co-pays are currently ridiculous as it is and again it is controlled by the state anyway.
Also, furloughs are counter to all that is typically done in the private sector--if you want to run the school as a business then you would fire a bunch of the teachers and hand a pay raise to those left--just saying.
Now, let's have a job freeze, eliminate all waste such as the purchase of new textbooks and Academic Coaches. All Para-Pros must go unless they are SPED attached. CUT ALL SPORTS FOR ONE SCHOOL YEAR AND SEE HOW MUCH WE SAVE.
I am a retired teacher. I am so tired of teachers getting all the cost saving. Maybe increase the number of children that can walk to school. There are ways to cut. I might even. Lose the lunchroom and have everyone bring sandwiches....
Rep. Alisha Morgan, D-Austell, said the $3,412 in unpaid state income taxes owed by her husband, Cobb County school board member David Morgan, was news to both of them. “We were not aware of that lien,” she said. Right. All the notices that are sent were somehow missed by the two supposed business "professionals".