Pinellas schools may have to cut another $8-million to $13-million from the budget, the superintendent says.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY and ALISA ULFERTS
Published May 28, 2003
Pinellas schools face the prospect of millions of dollars in additional spending cuts and little or no teacher raises under the lean state budget approved by the Florida Legislature.
Superintendent Howard Hinesley said the district may be forced to trim another $8-million to $13-million. That's in addition to $24-million in cuts the district already has approved for the coming year.
"This is real," Pinellas School Board chairwoman Linda Lerner said. "We're going to have other budget cuts, and it's going to be even harder."
Lawmakers passed a $53.5-billion state budget late Tuesday that includes about $837-million more for public schools. But more than half of that money is devoted to class-size reduction.
That leaves little new money for school districts. Pinellas, in particular, is feeling the squeeze.
A staggering 83 percent of the new money coming to Pinellas schools next year is devoted to reducing class size.
State lawmakers put their own spin on the numbers, touting an average per pupil spending of $5,525 - an increase of $241 over last year. But if the $468-million being spent on class-size reduction is taken out, the increase shrinks to $56.50. That's a jump of just 1.1 percent.
Even lawmakers who voted for the budget regard the spending plan as a bitter pill.
"If you take out the class-size money, there's very little operational money in the districts," said Senate President Jim King. "They are going to have to do some very creative financing."
As expected, the class-size measure prompted considerable creativity from lawmakers. In order to make it work, they are borrowing money for new construction and trying to rush some students through high school.
The class size bill reduces the number of credit hours a student needs to graduate from 24 to 18. That could allow students as young as 16 to graduate and head to college.
"We don't know if these kids will be able to go on to a university," said Rep. Susan Bucher, D-Royal Palm Beach. "We don't know a lot about this bill but we do know this is not something we want to pass hastily."
School districts in the Tampa Bay area did not fare well under the new spending plan. While average per-pupil spending statewide is going up 4.6 percent, each of the five local school districts are looking at smaller increases, with Pasco bringing up the rear at 3.2 percent.
"Between growth and summer school and class size, that about eats it all up," said Pasco superintendent John Long.
Hillsborough County will get an overall increase of $63-million. But with an expected 5,000 more students next year, that amounts to just a 3.9 percent increase in per-pupil funding.
"That's a lot more money, but we have a lot more bills to pay," said Hillsborough deputy superintendent Jim Hamilton. "After we pay all our bills, we have about $906,000 left. We'll have to make other cuts to do anything for our employees."
Hamilton waxed philosophical about the budget difficulties, noting that the same voters who approved the costly class-size amendment also elected representatives who ran on a no-tax-increase platform.
Pinellas had hoped the Senate, with its more generous budget proposal, would carry the day in the budget battles in Tallahassee. But the end result looked more like the less-generous House version, and that leaves Pinellas in a bind. No one was saying Tuesday where the district might take another $8- to $13-million out of the budget.
School officials say it costs about $4-million to give employees a 1 percent pay raise. The budget projections were based on the assumption that employees might get a 2 percent increase. Eliminating raises would make up the $8-million that might have to be trimmed.
"That's what we have to look at now: no increases," said Rob McMahon, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association.
"Maybe we need to do what Oregon did," McMahon said, referring to that state's decision to end its school year early.
"Teach them until we run out of money and then shut down," McMahon said. "Is that what we're going to have to do?"
- Times staff writers Tom Tobin and Matthew Waite contributed to this report.
