You know I believe in full transparency, so I will share exactly where we stand...
Yes, many districts are laying off staff. WHY? The state is expected to cut the amount of money each school gets per student (FTE) based on the economic recession expected. Also, many school districts are going to lose students to homeschooling and FL virtual. Districts are expecting a 5-10% loss of incoming revenue funds. One florida district chose to lay off 17% of its employees. Yes you will see that Duval is hiring, they always start the year with hundreds of vacancies, but many schools that were fully staffed int he more affluent areas, are having teacher positions lost to budget and those teachers are being moved to Title 1 schools to fill unfilled positions.
Is CSUSA expecting layoffs? Not if we are smart with several factors. They are committing to not laying off or touching compensation. How? We are ensuring we are not spending ahead of ourselves (waiting for enrollment numbers at October count) and therefore each school is holding back 5% . Until we know what the FLDOE/State budget is and what enrollment looks like, the worst thing that can happen is to over staff or over spend prior to October. Then when funds come out, if not budgeted well, a district or charter company would have to lay off.
What does that mean for Southside? We have been asked to hold back $470,017 which is 5% of our budget We are considered Tier 1 for budget (healthy budget history and healthy enrollment with trends for enrollment continuing to uptrend) - this means it does not have to all come from positions/compensation. Some schools are haivng to cut 3-5% all in positions. We have flexibility which comes from our higher enrollment (a few of you were frustrated that CSUSA told us to go to 1145 - it is now saving positions!)
Where will we find $470,017?? We are holding off on one resource unfilled position (Spanish/music or however we were going to schedule it) & one admin assistant position at front desk, all of our capital outlay on hold - (turf, fencing replacement, upgraded marquee) and then consumables/other smaller pots of money. Again, this is a hold back, not a cut. If the state impacts FTE or our enrollment does not show up, then we would have to cut other positions, etc. If the cut is not as severe and our enrollment holds, then we would go ahead and schedule the next 1/3 of the field turf, etc.
There are increased expenses this year in facilities sanitation, thermal thermometers, hand sanitizer stations, floor markings, student partitions? masks? additional technology needed, etc. so we will have to be smarter with funding.
Savings - we throw away boxes of planners each year that parents refused to purchase due to lack of use in the classroom - we will not be purchasing this year. Music department has instruments and music, so their budget will be re-utilized. The computer lab will not be refreshed this year, but those funds re-allocated to more ipads. We were going to replace 5 of the aging display/touch screen boards with smart tvs, those funds are going to more laptops. The unused spring stipends from activities that were cut will fund the teacher laptops for the new positions we added this year. Art (like all resources) will start the year going to classrooms on a cart and with reduced numbers in the classroom, they will need less supplies this year. As we have learned to live without paper packets as much during spring, we will continue many of those practices in the hybrid model and need less copy paper, etc. Just like at home, when budget gets tight, we will find ways to least impact student learning and tighten the belt until we know more information.
Again, I want to stress that we will have areas we will have to cut back, but our healthy enrollment should keep us from losing positions, or cutting programming.
