Up to 50 laid-off teachers may get reprieve
Photo 
Karen Schulte
JANESVILLE — About 50 of the 125 teachers who received layoff notices recently are likely to remain employed by the Janesville School District.
Superintendent Karen Schulte said Wednesday that the school board’s actions Tuesday night would allow her to keep some of the counselors, librarians, learning-support teachers and others who received the notices.
Schulte said she doesn’t yet know which teachers would be retained.
“There isn’t one group more important than another. They’re all important to us. I look at it more like, how many of each group—or even skill sets—can we bring back,” Schulte said.
Schulte reiterated a statement she made Sunday, that she’s looking are redesigning some positions and make them non-union positions, and the people filling them would pay their pension contributions, as the other non-represented staff are.
Schulte met with her leadership team Wednesday morning to start the process of filling in the details of what those positions would look like as part of an overall plan for delivering education to students with a reduced staff next fall.
Schulte plans to present that plan to the school board at its Tuesday, May 10, meeting.
The board Tuesday voted to take $3.4 million out of district reserves to help close its $13.4 million budget gap.
The board has approved most but not all the budget cuts needed to close the gap.
If the remaining 75 staff members who received layoff notices were cut, the district would save about $4.37 million.
The board still must decide whether to cut:
-- Textbooks, $200,000.
-- 10 secretaries, clerks and aids, $210,000.
-- Nonrepresented staff, including administrative positions, $449,000.
-- Buildings and grounds maintenance contracted services and capital improvements, $1 million.
Even with those cuts, a $600,000 gap would remain, Schulte said.
The buildings and grounds budget might be the most difficult vote. It would leave just $162,000. The cut would eliminate a longstanding contract for preventive boiler maintenance that cost $105,000 this year.
Maintenance supervisor Dave Leeder told the board Tuesday that some boilers are original equipment, and if that expense were cut, “That would hurt, it really would.”
Meanwhile, Schulte is looking at a projected budget gap of $5 million for the 2012-13 school year, and she said she doesn’t want to go through another year with large numbers of layoffs.
OTHER BUSINESS
Other items from Tuesday’s school board meeting:
-- The $3.4 million the board voted to take out of its Fund 10 balance is more than its own policy allows, according to district CFO Keith Pennington. Pennington told the board that he estimates the policy would allow only $3.25 million, so the board will need to vote to change its policy. Two of those who voted against using the $3.4 million—Greg Ardrey and Peter Severson—indicated that their main concern was the board policy.
-- Cuts to middle school athletics included eliminating one sport, tennis. No other sport in middle or high schools has been eliminated. Officials said Beloit, the middle schoolers’ only opponents other than themselves, don’t offer middle school tennis. The cost for tennis is about $2,500 for the coaches’ salaries, officials said, plus transportation.
-- Middle schoolers in some cases will be playing fewer games, officials said, although they did not specify which sports. The middle school cuts and fee increases passed 8-0.
-- The possibility of volunteer coaches to fill in for the assistant coaches that are being cut was suggested at the meeting.
May 3, 2011 at 6:24 p.m.
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ShariF, can you explain what you mean by the "grant contract" ?
May 3, 2011 at 5:59 p.m.
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Will these funds be financing programs within the schools? Will the present staff be expected to run it? I'm just curious. I'm not being sarcastic, I really don't know.
Apr 30, 2011 at 9:02 p.m.
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Money given to Save Janesville Schools is separate from money given directly to the school district. This money WILL be used for restoring cut programs and will be granted to the school district for that purpose only. It cannot be used for administration, new equipment or anything other than what the grant contract specifies. The district will have to report back to the Community Foundation exactly how the money is spent. Our goal is to maintain a quality school system for the good of the students and the community.
Apr 30, 2011 at 7 p.m.
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So donating cash back into a broken system, makes sense? Uh... no. Fix the system.
How many sloths does it take to run a school system? Unload em all!
Apr 30, 2011 at 9 a.m.
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They are asking the employees to donate money back to the School District. Umm, poor management of money, and poor decisions of the school board got us here. I still do not know if I have a job next year or not. Schulte made the comment that if money was donated she would not guaranty jobs would be saved. Sorry Sunshine, I am keepin my money...
Apr 30, 2011 at 12:33 a.m.
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Have any sports in the high schools been cut? Freshman, JV, or Varsity?
Schools should no longer be purchasing hard copy textbooks when they can be downloaded online to a computer or other digital device. ELIMINATION of ALL paper should not be a problem at the school level. All student records should be digital, all forms, letters, correspondence etc should be done electronically ANYONE and everyone can get internet access at the Hedberg Public Library, their own personal internet access, or via cell phone. Email addresses can be created at no charge through Google, Yahoo!, etc.
What cuts has the Superintendent taken? Any concessions on her part? What about other administrators at the district level? You can't tell me they can't afford a pay cut or freeze.
Apr 29, 2011 at 11:51 p.m.
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Take a minute to look at the numbers. About $10000 per year spent per student (All inclusive) take into account number of days per year 180 and hours of learning per day 6 and it equates to about $9.25 per hour. Good deal until you calculate it out per classroom, again all expenditures, 25 to 30 student is $230 to $280 per hour spent for educating students. Where is the waste? Many areas, but none are exempt like teachers want to be.
Apr 29, 2011 at 2:28 p.m.
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"I see a city going through dead rattles."
Janesville has top-notch teachers and toop-notch educational programs. Times are extremely tough, and some sad things are happening. But my response to opinionsforfree is:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Wmo60KuSE
Apr 29, 2011 at 11:46 a.m.
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What Community? I see a dead city in just going though dead rattles. If someone would look up the word community on Wikipedia and tell what is states?
Apr 28, 2011 at 9:13 p.m.
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Gotta love Schulte, 24 retire at the top of the pay scale only means 14 come back. That is a math problem I would like explained with a little more clarity. Clarity meaning numbers not a bunch of garbage rhetoric. Numbers(REAL NUMBERS) would be nice for a change. Thanks.
Apr 28, 2011 at 8:33 p.m.
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There is no way they can cut 1 million from grounds and maintenance. That would be so short-sighted. Not keeping up with maintenance will cost us big in the long term! This budget is so depressing for our schools and our community.
Apr 28, 2011 at 8:26 p.m.
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Eliminate preventive boiler maintenance.
Dangerous, costly, and stupid.
Apr 28, 2011 at 7:12 p.m.
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One other question, does the 125 include the social workers that go lay off notices months ago? I'm curious what the actual number is for what we are looking at for number of employees we will drop from this year to next year. I'm thinking it's much higher than 125.
Apr 28, 2011 at 7:09 p.m.
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It isn't that they are overstaffed, it's that they are underfunded!
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So does the 125 number include the 50 that they claim was due to the drop in enrollment (but also includes increased class sizes) or is that 125 in addition to those 50? I'm sure that 125 does not include the 10 custodians they voted to lay off on Tuesday. And where do the 24 that are retiring fit into this? Those retirements are supposed to bring back 14 positions, so are those 14 included in the 50 she proposed to bring back. I'm confused!
Apr 28, 2011 at 6:26 p.m.
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If your over staffed...cut and save some real money.
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