Jeff McDaniel
The RIF plan was designed to shave $10.4 million from the school system’s budget — a response to a decade of state cuts that total $50 million.
Despite numerous efforts over the last few years to avoid staffing cuts, administrators said it was time to accept that, due to economic hardships, no restoration of education funding is on the horizon.
“After a certain period of time, you see that’s maybe not a short-term thing,” said Tim Hensley, assistant to Superintendent Jeff McDaniel. “Maybe it’s the new normal of what we’re dealing with, looking at where we are and what we have to be for next year.”
Out of options
The school system has implemented furlough days in recent years, but Hensley said on Saturday that it would have taken around 30 furlough days in the next school year to put a dent in the dearth.
“The biggest reductions in state spending have been in the last three years, the largest percentage of those cuts,” Hensley said. “They’ve been happening since 2003, but it was mainly $2 million, $3 million — then all of a sudden it was $8 million to $9 million three years in a row.”
He said he couldn’t speak on behalf of former superintendents, but he emphasized that all options had been explored before the system resigned to the RIF.
“We were trying to do everything we could to keep from doing what we’ve had to do now,” he said. “After 10 years, things build up. The options become very few that you have to work with. It’s not like we haven’t done anything in 10 years; we’ve had cuts throughout that time.”
Administrative staff, or those who work on a 12-month schedule, have had furlough days each year before the system-wide furloughs were put into place to save money. That was implemented even before 2003, when Kelly Henson was superintendent.
Hensley reeled off a list of other cost-saving efforts of the past: delayed bus purchases, delayed textbook purchases, reduced training, instituted a number of spending freezes for a period of time during the last 10 school years, instituted hiring freezes for periods of time during the school year.
Administrators also reduced staffing slowly, by not replacing some retiring personnel over the last 10 years. The number of employees dropped by 200 during the past decade, to just more than 1,600 before the RIF. Staff has delayed purchases when possible and instituted energy-saving policies to reduce consumption. Maintenance projects have also been delayed.
Hensley said the budget was still $7 million to $8 million short of where it needed to be, forcing the administration to “take a hard journey up another avenue.”
In an email issued system-wide by McDaniel on Friday, the budgeted expenditures for 2013 was $94,526,867. With anticipated revenue for Fiscal Year 2014 at $86,072,000, if the system kept everything as is, it would be nearly $8 million short to cover all the costs, he said.
Projected increases in expenditures in coming years pushed that number more than $2 million higher, he said, so the system needed $10 million in additional revenue to meet projections.
Even if the Floyd County Board of Education raised taxes from 18.588 mills to the maximum — there’s a 20-mill state cap — it wouldn’t garner enough revenue to have a major impact on the deficit, McDaniel said.
One furlough day saves $300,000, but the system can’t afford to have more than 10 without affecting students’ education. And the ending balance at the end of the school year must be at least $7 million in order to make payroll and pay the bills during the summer, he said.
With 90 percent of the school system’s budget spent on salaries and benefits, a RIF couldn’t have been avoided any longer.
“You don’t buy buses for a while. You don’t spend money on facilities for a while. You don’t buy books for a while,” Hensley said. “But eventually, after 10 years, you have to begin to do those things. You can’t have school out in a field with no building and no bus to get them there. At some point you have to cut money from personnel.”
Restructure plan
During the RIF and restructuring process, anyone with a teaching certificate who held a position outside the classroom that was eliminated was then considered for a teaching position. That resulted in 34 certified personnel being reassigned to classrooms.
In the Central Office and Central Administration restructuring, 17 positions are being eliminated or left unfilled: three directors, five coordinators, five certified slots and four classified slots.
Administrators who work in both the Central Office and in schools — as well as head football coaches — will have their contracts cut by five days for 2014 and five more days in 2015.
Nine assistant principal positions will be eliminated, including some instructional coaches with administrative duties who act as assistant principals on the elementary school level.
“They essentially had the same duties as an assistant principal; they just changed the names a few years ago,” Hensley
said. “We currently have one at every school. In the new alignment there will be two schools that are sharing one.”
Six interventionist positions will be eliminated. Those positions were added two years ago with federal stimulus package funds, but the money was only available for two years.
The Floyd County Alternative School program will move next to the Compass program on the Coosa High campus. The Performance Learning Center will move to the College and Career Academy campus. From sharing staffers, 16 positions will be eliminated.
Nine counseling positions also are being erased. Next year there will be one counselor at the high-school level on a 195-day contract, one counselor at the middle-school level on a 190-day contract and a half-time counselor at the elementary level on a 190-day contract.
Twenty teaching positions were eliminated when they lost targeted state funding, four positions were eliminated from the High School 101 course, and reductions were made in funding for the Communities in Schools program.
Eleven school secretary positions were eliminated — leaving three secretaries at each high school, two secretaries at each middle school and two secretaries at each elementary school.
Scheduling changes on the middle-school level — a hybrid between block and period scheduling — will be implemented. This includes the restructuring of “connections” courses such as art and computer classes, which allows eight positions to be cut. Restructuring elective classes cut four more slots.
Custodial and maintenance services also were restructured so that fewer materials will be ordered for the services.
A freeze has been placed on step-raises for classified personnel, and a type of health care option available for employees, called Board Paid Life, has been eliminated.
Fine arts and physical education courses also were restructured to eliminate three positions, so there will be one teacher for each of the two courses at Cave Spring Elementary, McHenry Primary and Midway Primary.
More changes
to come
Hensley said that because some schools will be losing more certified teachers than others — for example, two at Armuchee High compared to five at Model High — those teachers who remain may be assigned to different schools to help balance the changes.
Hensley said he knows this is an emotional time for the Floyd County Schools community because names and faces are attached to the 119 who will not be returning for the next school year.
On paper, the number looks harsh, he said, yet Floyd County Schools currently employs 1,604 people, 940 of whom are certified.
In his email, McDaniel said he wanted to make sure every employee knew why the RIF was necessary and emphasized that he did not go through the process lightly. He said notifications went out now, 90 days before contracts are due, to give the RIFed more time to prepare.
“I have already been in touch with professional associations to enlist their help in assisting our employees with information and services,” McDaniel wrote. “I trust that by making this decision early, we have given you the best opportunity to secure a new position for next school year.”
Hensley said that when the RIF changes were being considered, McDaniel tried to preserve as many school programs as he could for the students.
“We could have just slashed categories,” he said. “But Dr. McDaniel wanted to continue to offer art, music and P.E. He wanted to continue to have media services in the schools and not just completely cut things, but go in and restructure to keep things available for those kids — maybe delivering them in a different way but keeping them available.”
The decisions made were taxing on everyone involved, he said, but at this point it’s the only way to make sure the school system is financially sound.
“Those were difficult things to do but, again, where do you go if you don’t?” Hensley said. “Our options were to be significantly in the red for next year, and as a school system that’s not an option that we have.”
"Want to see who the worst teachers are? Just go to a school "open house" and see the teachers who have parents lined up out the door waiting for a chance to confront the teacher. Every school has them...2 or 3 idiots who are nothing but trouble, regardless of age."
This brings back fond memories of my time at RCS. When I taught "lower" level classes, called Tech level at the time. I could usually count on open house as a great time to grade papers because few parents would show up. Down the hall, a highly regarded AP European History teacher had parents lined up as far as the eye could see. This happened every year without fail. I eventually started teaching advanced classes and I stopped using open house as an opportunity to grade papers because I had parents to talk to. It seems as if Common_Sense is a bit disgruntled.
I cannot imagine your frustration as I imagine that you have fallen victim to the RIF or someone you care about has. This could have been because they regarded you as ineffective, or simply a political hatchet job, who knows? I hope things turn around for you and you have the ability to channel the anger away from generalizations about those that survived the process.
In ten years as a teacher I have watched new teachers take the building with an unbelievable fire or seem terribly inept. At the same time I have watched veteran teachers continue to master the classroom or throw their feet up and read the paper.
Best wishes.
I don't know let's see maybe the most current one.
The RFPRA out of control spending that the commissioners refuse to reign in.
And like they take OUR SPLOST (just another tax for the elites to waste) and build a very nice track and then tell us we can't and will not use it, and only then after the storm of opposition they reverse gears and say oh okay you can use it after all.
Maybe that one will refresh your memory???
Out of options? Pfttt! RIF of 119 every 160 days until high school and college come with a money-back-if-no-job guarantee.
World wide currency war? When is that scheduled to begin? Is this where the armed gangs of thugs will try and take over our communities, and we will need our assault weapons to defend ourselves? Could you check with Glenn Beck or Mike Morton and find our when the war is scheduled to start so I can get to my bunker I built after watching Doomsday Preppers.
The Tin Foil Hat crowd is amazing to watch. Any huckster with a message of fear will prey upon these fools and there doesn't seem to be an end to the number of huckster or fools.
"In February 2009, the president told NBC's Matt Lauer that if he didn't have the economy fixed in three years, then "there's going to be a one-term proposition." We were too dumb to allow that.
As a candidate, Obama promised to create five million new energy jobs alone, claimed that by the end of his first term his health care plan would "bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family," and guaranteed that his financial rescue plan would help "stop foreclosures." As president-elect, Obama informed us that he had asked two of his top economic advisers, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, to conduct a "rigorous analysis" of his economic recovery plan. The report that he released predicted unemployment would not rise above 8 percent if the stimulus plan was passed. And in the first year of his presidency, Obama pledged to "cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office," "lift two million Americans from poverty," and "jolt our economy back to life."
The Wal-Mart generation did not care and thought it didn't affect them. McDaniel's wisest words is that this is the new normal. Our standard of living will remain low for at least a generation due to our nation's "punish the rich", "subsidize failure", and "things must be fair" attitude.
We reap what we sow.
Georgia has a BALANCED budget amendment-They must balance the books every year-UNLIKE Obama who has never passed a budget while golfing 116 times since being elected..
"He feels your pain"-LOL
Add to that our tax policy of punishing success and the misery will be shared. America is stupid and deserves all of this. It's sad when you look at it at the individual level because real people are put out of work, but that's what we asked for.
We Reap What We Sow
What happens in 3 years after everyone, even people making $23,000 a year, gets an 8 percent paycut and there still isn't more money? I know...you write a nasty comment saying they should have reorganized a couple years ago. Like people are doing now.
So, again, I ask -- enough WHAT is enough?
Instead of arbitrarily reducing the pay of effective educators along with ineffective educators, why not cut those who can't seem to improve? With step raises and an automatic raise with each new degree, you'd expect better results, right? A person with a Masters in Education or a Specialist degree, you'd expect to have the results to match their education? They'd be better than someone without those degrees, right? After-all what are we paying them more for?
But sadly you don't see better results - instead with tenure you see mediocracy becoming the norm.
Tenured teachers need only join a teachers' association and they are guaranteed a fat load of money or at least to cost the system a lot of money if they are fired without years of documented poor performance. And sadly there really isn't any incentives for a principal to document poor work performance - actually it makes them look bad in the short run when they do and is a paperwork nightmare. It's easier and safer just to shift them into an auxiliary position - academic coach, weights teacher, ISS babysitter, etc.
These teachers who know they can't be fired easily so long as they do a "decent" job don't strive for excellence. This means, so long as they show up on time, be where they're told to be, and don't hit or have sex with a kid, they are guaranteed a job.
Is this what we are teaching our children? Get a stable job then slack off cause they can't fire you without a lawsuit? Teachers should be like the rest of us: held accountable for their performance.
Coaches receive a large salary you should add - paid by our local funds, not state funds to boot.
That's loads of head coaches and dozens of mediocre teachers keep around cause they are an assistant coach or coach a smaller sport - displacing good teachers.
If the parents, booster club and fans want a sports team - they can pay for it.
But, I don't think cutting the school's part of funding to the athletics would produce the savings to pay for many positions they are cutting - but it's a step in the right direction.
A coordinator is someone whose job is to make different groups work together in an organized way to achieve something.
At the BOE, what is the difference between a Director and a Coordinator? Would a qualified Director need a Coordinator? Should a Coordinator’s title be changed to Director’s Interpreter?
These are some of the many mysteries of the BOE.
Ideal this RIF would have minimized the number of good employees taken out of our schools. Instead it got rid of many good workers because it was not based on merit or results. The superintendent and his staff are putting people that haven't been in the classroom in years back in it and firing those who are non-tenured, yet have proven themselves effective.
You've also got to question what made these librarians, principals, counselors etc. that are being reassigned to the classroom leave the it the first place. I'd bet many of them didn't want to be in the classroom in the first place.
I'd bet if you were to start at the top paid employees and look at the things that really matter in our education system today that's graduation rates & test scores and ask if we are paying these people too much, you'd have cut $10.5 million at far less than 119 people.
My bottom line is these layoffs should have been about getting more for your tax dollars - not keep those that have been around the longest regardless of quality. After-all giving the highest quality of education to our children should have been the ONLY priority. No questions about it.
I would have too if I was him. It makes him look helpless.
The previous superintendent is the one you need to look at as far as "politics" are concerned. Politics should be called "cronyism" as someone stated in a comment several days ago.
Look back in the past three or four years of board minutes to see who was rehired half-time after early retirement. Early retirement due to that superintendent doing away with the severence package. That meant those retirees were getting a nice retirement check plus 60% of their previous salary.
Look for the one person at the CO level who got a $30,000 raise in one year. (it wasn't the superintendent)
But what everyone is forgetting in this whole mess is that it doesn't even begin at the local level. The roots reach all the way to the White House. The local budget cuts are just a trickle down problem from higher up, MUCH HIGHER UP.
Give the new superintendent a break. Do you think the past two months have been easy on him? Do you think he hasn't been bothered by the decisions he has had to make? Do you really think think he was the one who created this monster? Really??
Huh?