OUCH! 680 Jobs May Be Cut at MPS

April 29, 2010

Proposed FY11 budget includes job cuts, continued support for classrooms, curriculum
Staff reductions necessary to control costs, says superintendent

Revenue shortfalls and excessive fringe benefit costs are the drivers behind the proposal to eliminate more than 680 Milwaukee Public Schools jobs in the coming fiscal year, MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos said.

The job cuts contained in the Superintendent’s FY11 Proposed Budget reflect 6.4% of current staffing levels and would affect almost all job classifications, including teachers, educational assistants, administrators, clerical and technical staff and trades workers.

The proposal now is in the hands of the Board of School Directors. The Board will use the month of May for deliberations and is tentatively set to adopt a final budget in early June.

The $1.3 billion proposed budget is down $33.1 million, or 2.5%, from the current district spending plan. There is not yet enough information to project a tax levy, but there is enough detail in the proposal to see the potential impacts on day-to-day operations and programs. Cuts in teacher positions may mean some larger class sizes and fewer specialty teachers. Reductions in the Division of Facilities & Maintenance Services would mean no plaster repairs and only essential painting. The cuts in Central Services departments include 21 positions in the Information Technology division. The exact number of actual employees who are to be laid off is not yet known. Layoff notices will be issued in early May, but factors such as retirements could change the number of affected employees.

The district is caught up in a cycle of decreased enrollment, decreased revenue and increasing costs. “We must control costs,” said MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos, who singled out the fringe benefit costs for current and retired employees. “The benefit rate we project for next year is more than 74%. The district cannot sustain that. We are providing millions for benefits that we could be using to keep teaching staff and buy supplies.”

In previous years, staff reductions were aligned with the projected decline in enrollment.

That’s not the case in FY11. Enrollment is projected to decline 2.1%, while staffing cuts are, proportionately, three times larger.

Of the 682 positions proposed to be cut, about 260 are teaching positions, amounting to 4.5% of the teaching staff. Other employee groups will take proportionally larger cuts. The number of general education assistant positions, for example, would decline by 87, or 32.7%; there would be 22.9 fewer assistant principal positions, a decline of 16.7%; the number of technical and administrative jobs would drop by 37.3, or 12.7%; and there would be 95.5 fewer paraprofessional positions, a drop of 10.1%. Every job category will be cut. Up to $1 million for outplacement services and retraining for employees has been set aside in the budget for those who lose their jobs. “This is a painful chapter in MPS history,” said Superintendent Andrekopoulos. “The decision to cut positions was made with great reluctance because of the pain it inflicts on families and the adverse effect on district services.”

As it anticipates job losses, the district also faces the challenge of having to provide programming that moves student achievement forward, with many efforts directed by a Corrective Action Plan. MPS has been identified as a District Identified for Improvement (DIFI) under the federal act commonly referred to as No Child Left Behind.

The superintendent’s proposed FY11 budget includes the following elements:

• Classroom materials to support implementation of the district’s literacy plan.

• Continuation of the successful math initiative at $13.4 million, much of it paid for through a state grant.
  

• Extension of the $1.2 million Partnership for the Arts. This partnership requires a dollar for dollar match from non-MPS partners.
  

• Support for early childhood programming at a total of 12 sites for a cost of $1.2 million in federal stimulus money.

• Continued funding for breakfast programs. Funding is entirely derived from district school nutrition revenue.

• $9.8 million in borrowing to convert an existing MPS property to a central food production facility able to produce up to 40,000 pre-portioned meals per day. Bond revenue would be repaid through cost savings.
  

• Increases in “paid” school lunch prices. Prices would rise ten cents at the elementary level (to $1.75) and twenty cents (to $2.00) at the secondary level. The mandated “Reduced” lunch price of forty cents a meal will not change. (Almost 80% of the district’s students qualify for free or reduced price lunches.)

• $5.8 million in borrowing for energy savings projects.

• A new Student Support Center, to serve students with serious behavior and academic problems, at a cost of $750,000, funded through a reallocation of alternative seats.

• Growth in a behavior management plan. The number of district schools on the PBIS program will grow to as many as 100. PBIS is the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports initiative that has reduced classrooms disruptions and has also reduced student suspensions in some schools.
  

• Continued funding of school resource officers (MPD) at six high schools. This cost is shared with the City of Milwaukee.

• Targeting of $2.7 million in stimulus funding to increase parent involvement. %uFFFD Savings of $1.6 million in transportation due to a realignment of how special education students are transported, and a change in the state law that requires MPS to pay parents who drive their children to private schools. The district can now pay per household rather than by individual student.
  

• $7.1 million dollars in savings from the past four years of school closures that will be distributed to remaining MPS schools.

The district’s budget picture for FY11 is not entirely complete. The exact amount of state aid to be provided to MPS will not be known until July, when districts are traditionally provided with their state aid estimates.
In addition, MPS administrators are examining the potential impact of a bill adopted by the legislature that would allow a change in individual SAGE classrooms. SAGE is the program that supports a 15-to-one student-teacher ratio. The program is not fully funded by the state, and MPS has been providing supplemental money to district schools that have SAGE. The legislative action would allow an 18-to-one ratio in SAGE classrooms next school year. The MPS FY11 plan currently lists 77 SAGE schools because the district could only fully supplement SAGE funds for schools with a free and reduced-price lunch count above 50%.

As difficult as FY11 promises to be, FY12 promises to be even tougher, warns Superintendent Andrekopoulos. “We are heading toward a funding cliff, because more than $47 million a year in federal stimulus funding will end. The state, in dealing with its own financial problems, used federal stimulus funding to fill holes in the equalization aid budget. We don’t know what the state’s revenue picture will be in FY12 or whether current aid levels will be maintained.”

The proposed budget for FY11 will be available in its entirety on the MPS portal at

http://mpsportal.milwaukee.k12.wi.us/portal/server.pt Look on the homepage under “Budget & Finance”.

Public input during the budget adoption process is welcomed. The Board’s Committee on Strategic Planning and Budget is scheduled to hold public hearings on the Superintendent’s proposed FY11 budget at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 4, 2010, and Thursday, May 6, 2010, and at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, and Thursday, May 13, 2010. Thursday, May 20, 2010, is the tentative date for the Board’s statutory public hearing on the FY11 proposed budget. The Board is tentatively scheduled to adopt a final budget on Thursday, June 3, 2010. Meetings begin at 6:30 p.m., and will take place in the auditorium of MPS Central Services, 5225 W. Vliet Street.