Deal Struck: Beaumont Teachers to Face 11 Layoffs, Furloughs, Larger Class Sizes

An agreement between the Beaumont Unified School District and the Beaumont Teachers Association was approved this week in which the teachers will take on a series of furloughs, restoring some of the previously laid-off positions—but not all.

In Tuesday’s school board meeting, the board voted to approved the two entities had been negotiating for the past few weeks.

Included in the deal are:

• 14 furlough days, to be split in half over the next two school years, which is equivalent to a 3.8 percent pay cut for the teachers
• The district will rescind 20 layoff notices of the

Due to retirements within the district, another 8 teachers have already had their jobs restored, bringing the total number of laid-off to 11, according to Beaumont Teachers Association President Jody Behrens-Blaul. 

Behrens-Blaul had been holding out hope that the approximate $600,000 needed to fund the remaining 11 teachers could be provided through the district’s general fund, however that did not happen.

That means class sizes will inevitably increase, according to the BTA.

“We appreciate being part of this great school district, but there’s no reason [these layoffs] should happen,” she told Banning-Beaumont Patch.  “It’s horrible when there’s a budget that huge.”

Behrens-Blaul was referencing the “huge” ending balance—or reserve as most people call it—the district currently has.  That balance is right around $14 million, according to district officials.

However, that’s not money that the district can actually spend, according to Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Wael Elatar.

“It’s a cash issue,” he said, further elaborating to Patch that the district doesn’t actually have any of that money in hand, since the state has “borrowed” it some time ago, and they’re not sure when it will actually be repaid.

According to Elatar, that money is supposed to be the district’s nest-egg of sorts, that could be used to pay bills for about two to three months if other funding resources were to not pan out for some reason.  However, since the state has that money, they don’t know if or when they’ll get it back.

What’s more, Elatar says the district is planning these cuts to prepare for a “worst-case scenario,” since they’ve been told that they will lose even more money from the state should voters not approve a new tax in November.

If in the upcoming November election the governor’s proposals for more taxes to fund schools are approved by voters, then much of the above will become null, the agreement states.  The furlough days will be done away with and teachers’ pay will be restored to what it was this year.

The furloughs will mean five fewer educational days for students—to be tacked onto a second week of spring break from April 1-5 2013—and two less teacher administrative days, according to the agreement.