Venting, which for me doesn't come easy Update 11/14

[WriterofWords]

My school district recently discovered it is 3.9 million dollars in the hole. The district has not done an audit since the 02-03 school year. Now we are facing a RIF, Reduction In Force, and other money saving tactics or we cannot meet the April 2009 payroll. These are a few of the money saving ideas they are implementing:

1. They will be removing 1/3 of all light bulbs in all classrooms, offices, hallways, etc. to save energy.

2. Give us one more week off at Christmas,, without pay.

3. RIF December 1, Merry Christmas,,

4. All District travel is cancelled,, except of course for Sports Scouting and Sports anything.

There a few other ideas they've come up with, but these really take the cake. How can a school district allow this to happen? They are blaming the "Previous Administration" of course, since we just had a change over for the Superintendent last year. Of course the legal debacle we went through and the millions paid for a total recall of our School Board had nothing to do with it.

I love my job, and my district most of the time. I went to school in this district, I teach in it for a reason, so this has just really hit hard and is disheartening. Thank you all for listening.
Kat

 

[kinnip]

It could be worse, you could be in Clayton Cty. GA.

 

[WriterofWords]

Why?

 

[debilorrah]

As someone who works for a government funded authority, transit, there is NO WAY we can get funding without an audited financial statement, next year budget and tons of paperwork telling them WHY we deserve the money. How in the heck did that district go for 6 years without a budget!!!!

 

[Sugar Sand Farm]

I know how you feel. Here in Florida they cut property taxes so they say (havent seen any reduction in my taxes) The first thing they cut was the education. Our school district was 750,000 in the hole when it started this year. We live in a large county but it only has roughly 18,000 residents. We are all pretty spread out. One of the cost saving ideas here was to double up on buses. Right now my grandchildren have to get the bus at 6:30AM school starts at 8:00AM that is 1 1/2 hour ride. Now they want to extend that to two hours to save gas. So far it hasnt happened they are also talking about closing one of the schools in the far end of the county. I saw today that the school board was having an auction to auction off used equipment. Hope this helps Why is education always the first thing they cut in the budget. Oh yeah our Governor told everybody to cut anothr 10% in this years budget How I don't know.

 

[WriterofWords]

Well they've had a budget, they just haven't audited, and I have no idea how they could have gone on like that. We are all shaking our heads and at a loss as to how it was allowed to go on and on.

 

[kinnip]

Quote:
Clayton cty. school system is the first in some absurd number of years to lose accreditation. You can't give away a house in that area now. Apparently, the school board were playing fast and loose with the money and the rules.

 

[WriterofWords]

That is bad. At least we aren't facing something like that.

 

[jnjross]

i don't know about NM but in MS RIF can only be done by the dept of finance and admin., for state employees and it has to have a investigation and be voted on.
something like this happened in hazelhurst ms and the dept of eduction took control of the school and found some fat pockets

 

[WriterofWords]

We aren't state employees. We had a RIF 4 years ago because of over-hiring when they built a new school too, but most were rehired right away. The district applied for 3.5 million from the state to get us through, just as the state cut education funding by 20%, so that won't go through.