The School Board for the Pulaski County Special School District on Thursday approved cuts and other changes in state-licensed employee positions that are intended to save the district as much as $788,245 in the coming 2018-19 school year.
The board also approved changes in support staff positions totaling an additional $303,000 but with plans to look in May at reorganizing the administration of the district's safety and security department to save still more.
The board-approved staffing changes include eliminating the elementary and secondary education director jobs to reinstate a deputy superintendent for learning services, plus cutting salaries for the human resources chief and operations director.
Thursday's special meeting was a follow-up to the April 10 board meeting during which Chief Financial Officer Denise Palmer warned that the 12,000-student district is in jeopardy of drawing $7.6 million from its $17.2 million in reserves to meet $130 million in projected expenses in the coming school year.
Drawing on school district reserves, or savings, can result in a system being identified by the Arkansas Department of Education as in fiscal distress or at least in need of early financial intervention by the state.
Paul Brewer, the district's chief executive officer/human resources, said in presenting the staff allocations that he had complied with the board's directive from the earlier meeting to consult with incoming Superintendent Charles McNulty on how to redo the staff allocations for the district's central office.
"What you instructed me to do was take a look at the allocations and see where we could maybe consolidate positions, cut some positions to try to have cost savings and be more efficient," Brewer said.
School Board member Tina Ward said interim superintendent Janice Warren "is really in charge" of the district until McNulty starts.
"Make sure you all understand that these are not my recommendations," Warren told the board. "These are Dr. McNulty's recommendations. Mr. Brewer did what you all instructed him to do. What he is presenting to you all is his conversation with the new superintendent."
Board member Alicia Gillen called it vital to the long-term success of the district to include the incoming superintendent in the staffing discussions.
"We are looking at a huge deficit regarding our budget. We have looked at those numbers. We have to start making cuts now and make cuts throughout the year," Gillen said.
Ward said the staffing plan looks good on paper, and the district will save a lot of money but people's livelihoods are at stake.
Board President Linda Remele said budget cuts are going to hurt, but the board is trying to make cuts that are far away from the students.
Brewer told the board that he has been recommending staffing cuts for his eight years in the district and there's not a lot of meat left on the bone. He said the employees who will be lost are excellent employees.
He said in an interview after the meeting that he did not set a specific financial savings goal for the staffing reductions.
The reductions include changing his chief executive officer/human resources title to that of assistant superintendent, resulting in his salary and benefits package going from $169,489 to $158,884. He similarly proposed that the district's executive director of operations be restructured to no longer require an engineering degree and that salary be reduced by about $24,000 including benefits. That job has been vacant since the resignation last year of Derek Scott.
The district will save about $133,000 by eliminating the director of elementary and secondary education jobs, now held by Linda Goodwin on a part-time, interim basis, and by John Tackett, and reinstating a deputy superintendent for learning services.
The district has not had a deputy superintendent since the 2016 resignation of Laura Bednar. When the School Board fired Superintendent Jerry Guess in July 2017 in a dispute over the employment of attorneys, Warren -- the district's assistant superintendent of equity and pupil services/director of elementary education -- was made interim superintendent. At the end of this year she is entitled under her contract to return to that assistant superintendent job.
Other changes to the central office staff include reducing the number of workdays for the district's director of talented and gifted education and the director of athletics from 244 workdays a year to 216, and eliminating the coordinator of English-language learning services position and adding those duties to those of the district's director of fine arts.
Included in the cuts are also five program administrators, paid with state aid based on the percentage of poor students in a district and who assist with the core academic subject matters. Brewer said McNulty wanted to consider alterations in those jobs that might end with rehiring those affected personnel.
McNulty starts work in the district July 1. Decisions on reducing or altering certified staffing must be made by May 1 by law or the staff members are automatically rehired to their current jobs. Support staff members must be notified of changes in their jobs 30 days before the start of their work year, a more flexible deadline for district hiring decisions.
Laura Shirley, the district's talented and gifted education coordinator, objected to the cuts in workdays and her pay that will amount to about $10,000 and to the cuts in general in the district's learning services division.
"It's all wrong," Shirley said. "It's not fair. We work hard to support the schools and to support teachers and students. I know that there will be work now that won't get done -- support for students that won't be there."
She wondered if those making the recommendations and decisions on staffing cuts understand the work done by the learning services department that includes the elementary and secondary education directors. She also questioned whether equity was considered in the decisions. In past years, when expenses had to be cut, the burden of lost days and pay was shared by many, Shirley said.
"I just want to see it done right the right way," she said.
Among the support staff positions, some of the approved cuts include a pupil accounting coordinator, a bookkeeper, an accounting specialist, three dyslexia interventionists, and a secretary to the director of human resources. In place of the human resources secretary would be a personnel specialist/secretary, which represents a $10,000 savings, from $59,000 to $49,000 including benefits.
There are other positions in the district that are "frozen" and won't be filled unless the School Board specifically authorizes them to be filled, Brewer said. There are some positions that are being reconfigured and/or renamed or hours added because of changes in school heating and maintenance systems.
Metro on 04/20/2018