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Janesville school staff cuts proposed

JANESVILLE — The administration recommends cutting 16 teaching positions in Janesville's public schools next fall. It also recommends creating 10 new positions.

That may not seem like a lot of cuts, but this is only the first step in setting the teacher and aide staffing in a district that expects to see falling enrollments in September.

The school board will take a look at the plan when it meets Tuesday. The board is just beginning to look at its options as it looks for ways to fill a budget shortfall in the millions of dollars and to hold the line on taxes.

"Everything is on the table" when it comes to balancing the budget, said Steve Salerno, the district's director of human services.

The administration is also preparing budget-cutting scenarios that involve administrative staff, Salerno said.

But no matter what the final staffing plan, Salerno said he hopes to reduce staff through attrition rather than layoffs. The number of retirements and resignations will determine whether layoffs are needed.

Salerno won't know whether layoffs are needed until mid-April, which is the deadline for teachers to announce whether they will retire this year. Teacher-layoff notices must be sent out in early May.

The teacher-staffing plan assumes a loss of 216 students in the district, which now has an enrollment of about 10,000.

The elementary schools are projected to lose 47 students, the middle schools 10 and the high schools 159.

Those numbers are based on course sign-ups in middle and high schools and casting forward the current elementary numbers. Kindergarten numbers are based on the average over the past three years.

Based on those estimates, the plan recommends seven fewer elementary teachers, four fewer middle school teachers and five fewer high school teachers.

If the plan were approved with no changes, the resulting savings would be about $688,000 compared to this year's staffing levels.

The administration also is recommending the addition of two teachers to the TAGOS Academy for at-risk students to expand enrollment there from about 60 to 100.

Other new positions recommended:

-- One teacher to expand the Challenge Program for talented/gifted students to the third grade. The program now runs from grades four through eight. Salerno said the hope is to attract more families into the district, which would increase revenue.

-- 1.5 teachers for the Janesville Virtual Academy. This would allow the district to provide more online courses, a requirement of being part of an online consortium of schools that share services.

-- Half a position for the 4-year-old kindergarten program to allow an expansion at the YMCA site.

-- One new "world language" teacher for the elementary schools.

-- Reinstating four elementary librarians. The board cut those positions a few years ago over the strenuous protests of the librarians. The reason for the turnaround: A recent report recommended that librarians' computer expertise be used more frequently to help staff with their technology issues.

The plan recommends funding the librarians, in part, by not creating a contingency fund. The contingency fund has been used in the past to hire up to five teachers if they are found to be needed later in the school year.

Salerno said that if there's an unexpected need for more teachers, the school board could dip into its fund balance, a reserve of unallocated money.

The plan also reduces instructional support staff—clerks, aides and secretaries—by a total of 1.5 hours per day at the elementary level, 0.5 hour at the middle school level and 5.75 hours at the high schools.

The aide reductions are set using an enrollment-based formula.

Asked what would happen if enrollments are unexpectedly high next fall, Salerno said:

"We want to see the whites of their eyes first in September before we would ask the board for additional funding."