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The Pinellas district may face even more cuts, depending on the outcome of state budget negotiations in Tallahassee.
By THOMAS C. TOBIN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 23, 2003
LARGO -- Faced with a deepening financial crisis and a state system that gives legislators the power to set their budget, Pinellas school officials resigned themselves Tuesday to sharp spending cuts that would eliminate nearly 600 jobs.
The lost jobs range from those of assistant principals and supervisors to teaching assistants and secretaries. Dozens of certified teachers who perform administrative and other tasks would be sent back into classrooms. Services to disabled students would be slashed.
"The current budget situation in the state for education is not serious," Pinellas schools superintendent Howard Hinesley told the School Board, ending with a grim punch line: "It is extremely serious."
The focus is on cutting as many nonteaching positions as possible, though school officials agree that the measures will erode quality in classrooms. The cuts are expected to be approved at the School Board meeting next Tuesday.
Hinesley also recommended that the district drop its prekindergarten program, which is hemorrhaging money. The reason is two-fold: A state funding formula requires the district to hire teachers at the start of the year, but doesn't reimburse until children enroll, often many months later. Also, the district is owed $122,468 in uncollected fees from parents.
"In my opinion," Hinesley told the School Board at an afternoon workshop, "You can't afford to do this anymore." The proposal inspired a collective frown in the room as Hinesley and board members agreed that pre-K programs are vital to improving performance in later grades, especially among low-income children.
"It hurts higher student achievement and it hurts the poor," board member Jane Gallucci said. About 700 small children at 23 locations would be without a public school pre-K program.
Most of the district's job cuts, meanwhile, can be achieved without layoffs by placing people in open positions, Hinesley said. But he indicated that not everyone will be retained.
More cuts could be necessary, depending on what happens in Tallahassee, where the state House and Senate are in a standoff over education funding.
Put simply, the House education budget would force Pinellas to cut nearly $38-million for the fiscal year beginning July 1. The Senate budget, meanwhile, would force cuts of $24.2-million in Pinellas -- a level that would be achieved with the reductions outlined by Hinesley on Tuesday.
But there's a caveat: $4.9-million of those cuts were made assuming the Senate will approve an accounting change that would allow school districts to pay property and casualty insurance using a property tax now earmarked for building costs.
Word came late Tuesday that the Senate may not approve that measure. Translation: Pinellas may have to cut an additional $4.9-million.
"For a number of years we've gotten run over by a Mack truck. I think we've finally gotten run over by a Bradley tank," Gallucci said earlier Tuesday at a joint meeting of the School Board and County Commission where local officials vented against the Legislature.
"We're living within our means," Gallucci told the group, taking a poke at House Speaker Johnnie Byrd's motto. "But living within our means means serious, serious cuts."
Among the job cuts, 400 affect teacher assistants, library assistants and other support staff members who serve disabled students -- a measure announced in February. Those employees are being offered jobs as school bus drivers, but only a few have inquired.
Another cut would eliminate the district's Area IV office, which oversees 24 elementary schools in southern St. Petersburg. The change would put more work on the three area offices that remain.
Also on the way out are 21 middle school specialists who assist students with "varying exceptionalities," which include moderate to severe learning disabilities, emotional disabilities and physical impairments. Officials said most of those students are moving on to high schools anyway, where specialists are being retained.
In addition, the district will eliminate 22 assistant principal jobs, including one at each high school. The exceptions, Northeast and Dixie Hollins high schools, are identified as "high need."
The "high need" classification did not rescue Mount Vernon Elementary, which will lose its assistant principal. And three magnet elementary schools in St. Petersburg -- Bay Point, Melrose and Perkins -- will lose one assistant principal each. Hinesley said the Melrose position could be reinstated based on a formula that measures a school's need for assistant principals.
When some board members started to question individual cuts to the magnet schools, Hinesley and board member Linda Lerner said there was plenty of pain to go around.
"These cuts are very difficult, but we still have to look at the whole picture," Lerner said.
"We're glad to see these folks arguing for an assistant principal," Hinesley said. The people affected "are cringing about this."
Here are some of the positions being eliminated in the Pinellas school district's proposed 2003-04 budget:
Pre-kindergarten coordinators -5
Supervisors and top administrators -21
Secretaries, clerks, etc. -21
Assistant principals -- 22
Nonteaching positions in schools -- 91
Teacher assistants/aides for disabled -400