Sarasota County Schools Propose $13.6 million in Cuts to Staffing, Benefits

Sarasota County Schools Deputy Chief Financial Officer Al Weidner said as the Florida House and Senate continue to debate education cuts, the actual amount going to be cut is becoming more clear. 

On Tuesday Weidner presented an updated budget plan to the Sarasota County School Board at its monthly work session. 

"The House and Senate have released their preliminary budgets. The House has a $20.5 million decrease and the Senate has an $18.5 million decrease for next year," Weidner said during his presentation to the board. 

As the end of the school year nears, Weidner said the district is planning conservatively by preparing for the House budget to pass instead of the Senate's. 

The total decrease in federal, state and local revenues for the district is slated to be $41.2 million. That cut is in addition to the $104 million the district has cut in the last four years. 

Where to cut?

As the district has nit-picked fat from programs and departments in the previous years, it is forced to look at the big spending areas this year such as salary, staff and benefits. 

Weidner presented a budget that cuts $6.8 million in salary and benefits along with cutting another $6.8 million with staffing reductions. 

The former has to be approved and in the next collective bargaining agreement, which is currently being negotiated in weekly executive sessions with the Sarasota Classified Teachers Association. 

Weidner said the next information the board gets about the budget would be at the end of the month. He said clearer reductions should be to the district by April 26. "Then we’ll be reviewing them on the 28th of April and we’ll put them all together and get them out to you on the 29th before the May 3 budget workshop," Weidner said.

"You can see that we are working on a tight timeline to try and get staffing done before [school staff] actually leave [for the summer]," he said.  

While the board acknowledged the time sensitivity of the issue, they requested an additional budget workshop for this issue. It has been scheduled for May 5, from 2 - 5pm. They said if the May 3 budget workshop ends in an agreement then they will cancel the May 5 meeting, but they wanted to advertise the meeting now. 

Enough is enough?

After board members, district staff and more board members continued to lambast Tallahassee for the district's own budget problems, board Chair Frank Kovach had enough. 

"We seem to have one conclusion, that all of our problems are Tallahassee's problems," Kovach said. "I also saw us in 04, 05 and 06 still spending reserves ... doing the same things back then [as now] and building unsustainabile budgets. 

"I, for one, do not agree with all the bashing going on," Kovach said.

Kovach is particularly worried about the non-recurring $28 million the district is planning on using for next year's recurring expenses. Of that $28 million, $8 million is from the Federal Jobs Education Carry Forward Fund, which is 'use it or lose it' funds. The district has until July 2012 to spend that money. 

The remaining $20 million is being taken out of the district's unrestricted fund balance. 

"I have a serious problem with where we are going with the budget," Kovach said.