Chicago Sun-Times: CPS to borrow $800M, boost teacher pay 4%

CPS to borrow $800M, boost teacher pay 4%

June 12, 2010

BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter

Chicago Public Schools officials revealed Friday that they plan to borrow up to $800 million to pay their bills -- even as they pledged to give teachers a promised 4 percent pay hike, a move designed to head off a strike.

CPS revealed its latest plans on how to confront its record deficit within hours of teachers concluding their vote on whether Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart or challenger Karen Lewis, a King College Prep teacher, should lead them through tough times ahead. Election results are expected early today.

CPS announced plans for a special School Board meeting Tuesday to take up the borrowing, teacher raises and a controversial plan to raise class size for the first time since Mayor Daley's 1995 city school takeover.

One resolution at the meeting will indicate that the system "will be unable to balance its budget'' unless it increases class size from, on average, 30 students to "up to 35.'' About 2,700 teachers would be laid off as a result, at a savings of $125 million.

However, in another resolution, CPS officials say they expect to have the money to pay promised 4 percent raises to teachers and seven other unions, for a cost of $100 million.

If School Board members do not pass such a resolution by June 15, the teachers union could open talks that might lead to a strike.

"We can't risk the uncertainty of putting our kids in a situation where they may not be able to go back to school because there's a strike," a CPS official said. "You take that off the table by saying,
'We're going to fund the 4 percent [raise].'"

The union has not struck since Daley's school takeover. One CPS official said many parents still remember "how many strikes there used to be. ... We can't put our students through this."

Also Tuesday, board members are expected to approve a resolution allowing them to borrow up to $800 million to cover late payments from the state. A CPS official said the line of credit is intended to help pay bills in the face of $437 million in late state payments this school year and the possibility of similar problems next school year.

Gainesville (GA) Times - State School Budget Cuts could be Severe

State school budget cuts could be severe.

Georgia’s $1.4 billion deficit could stifle operations

By Mitch Clarke mailto:Clarkemclarke@gainesvilletimes.com

POSTED March 12, 2010 12:31 a.m.

School systems across Georgia may be forced to close schools, fire teachers or raise taxes to offset mounting budget deficits, according to a scenario presented Thursday to the state Board of Education.

Georgia schools could be looking at as much as a $1.4 billion deficit in formula funding next year, money that is used to meet mandated class-size requirements and to pay teacher salaries.

In Hall County, this could mean $13 million less in state funding next year, said Superintendent Will Schofield.

At Thursday’s board meeting, state Superintendent Kathy Cox said local school systems may have to take unprecedented steps to balance their budgets.

Later Thursday, Gov. Sonny Perdue, acknowledging 15 straight months of state revenue declines, announced plans to cut an additional $342 million from his 2011 budget, which would include an additional $100 million from education.

Among the ideas discussed at the state level were increasing the size of classes, cutting salaries, furloughing teachers for 10 days and shortening the school year by five days. But officials said local officials still may be forced to close schools, lay off teachers, eliminate programs or raise taxes.

“People are going to have to realize that these cuts are huge and it will not be business as usual in education,” Cox said. “We can’t bury our heads in the sand and say we’re not hurting education.”

Both Schofield and Gainesville Superintendent Merrianne Dyer all but ruled out raising taxes as a way to offset the deficits.

“(Our school board) has been incredibly sensitive to the fact that our entire community is hurting,” Schofield said. “Raising taxes is as far down the list as we can get it.”

But both superintendents said other ideas — including making classes larger or letting teachers go — have to remain as options.

“We have to plan for the worst,” Dyer said.

The Hall County school board already has floated the idea of closing at least one school to save money.

School systems are facing these tough choices because state revenue continues to decline, down 9.9 percent in February.

Perdue’s initial proposed 2011 budget includes an $839 million deficit in school formula funding. It was not immediately clear how Perdue’s announcement that he would cut an additional $100 million in funding would impact local school budgets.

Scott Austensen, the state’s deputy superintendent for finance and business operations, told the state board prior to Perdue’s announcement that the governor’s revenue estimates could be high because he was factoring in a hospital bed tax and an increase in the tobacco tax — two ideas that face a skeptical legislature.

Austensen said the formula deficit could be as high as $1.5 billion, meaning schools, on average, would receive about $525 per student less in state funding next year.

“How in the world are schools systems supposed to operate a school with $525 less per student?” Cox asked.

Larry E. Winter, the 9th District representative on the school board, hopes parents understand how deep these cuts could go.

“What I’m taking away from this is the magnitude of what we are asking (school systems) to, along with us, jointly deal with,” Winter said. “These are major cuts that are going to affect everyone.”

One idea being floated is to reduce the number of days in the school year from 180 to 175. To accommodate 10 furlough days, teachers also would lose five planning days during the year.

Dyer said the Gainesville system, with a large number of inner-city children, will need to work with agencies such as the Boys & Girls Clubs and the YMCA to make such a plan work.

“We have to be careful not to overburden the agencies that take our children when we aren’t in session,” Dyer said. “We’d have to identify when we can (close for 5 days) to have the least impact on families.”

Both Dyer and Schofield remain optimistic that better days are head. They said the budget challenges give their system the opportunity to set priorities.

“We didn’t go looking for this crisis,” Schofield said. “It came and found us.”

The Los Angeles Times - More California School Districts on the Financial Brink

June 29, 2010 5:02 pm

An increasing number of California school districts are edging closer to financial insolvency, state officials reported Tuesday.

One immediate effect has been the layoff of teachers — probably in the thousands, although neither state officials nor the California Teachers Assn. has final numbers.

Since the beginning of 2010, the number of school systems that may be “unable to meet future financial obligations” has increased by 38%, according to the state Department of Education.
“Schools on this list are now forced to make terrible decisions to cut programs and services that students need or face bankruptcy,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.

Of the state’s 1,077 school districts, 14 are classified as in especially dire condition. They are not likely to avoid bankruptcy based on their current approved budgets. L.A. County has one such school system, the Lynwood Unified School District, officials said. Other districts in this category include Hayward Unified in Alameda County, Vallejo City Unified in Solano County and Natomas Unified in Sacramento County.

An additional 160 school systems have a “qualified” financial outlook, meaning they are at risk although probably not in danger of immediate bankruptcy. Districts in that situation in L.A. County include L.A. Unified, Burbank Unified, Culver City Unified, Glendale Unified, Inglewood Unified, Montebello Unified, Norwalk-La Mirada Unified, Pomona Unified, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified and South Pasadena Unified.

About 26,000 teachers received notice in March that they might be laid off, according to data collected by the CTA. At least 9,000 of these notices have been rescinded so far. Last year also brought teacher layoffs, leading to a decline of about 15,000 in the union membership. The state has about 300,000 teachers.

Non-teaching employees also have been hard hit. Thousands have lost jobs in Los Angeles Unified alone. Many of those still working have experienced pay cuts, while students have to deal with larger classes, a shorter school year and decreased services.

The education portion of the current budget proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could result in additional layoffs, although other sectors of governments have faced even steeper cuts.

-- Howard Blume

San Diego News Network - California Budget Crisis Diaries: Pink slippin’ teachers

Posted By hoa.quach On March 16, 2010 @ 10:47 am In California Budget

As thousands of California teachers receive layoff notices, talks of education spending compared to prison spending, and health care reform continue in the Golden State.

If you happen to consider this just more somber news, check out SDNN’s coverage of St. Paddy Day’s events [1] and party your sorrows away. The spending could also help the California economy. (I’m joking, but not really.)

Until the revelry Wednesday though, here is your dose of CBCD.

21,905 pink slips have been handed out statewide before Tuesday’s legal deadline for districts to send preliminary layoff notices.

The biggest question is just how many teachers will actually be let go. Last year, 26,000 teachers received pink slips and about 60 percent of those people were eventually laid off.

This year’s final head count depends on the state budget to be adopted for the upcoming fiscal year.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell expects this year’s actual job losses to be high, given budget problems and a smaller pool of education stimulus money available from the federal government.

The state’s public schools employ nearly 307,000 K-12 teachers, according to the state Department of Education. About 7 percent of those teachers have received pink slips.
Prisons vs. Education: As California’s fiscal dilemma continues, talks of the prison budget compared to that of education continues. In a Tuesday rant by Dick Price on the online media Web site BeyondChron [2], he digs deeper into all the numbers. "To get a handle on the damage California’s current approach to incarceration is having on its citizens, consider this: In a recent 23-year period, California erected 23 prisons — one a year, each costing roughly $100 million dollars annually to operate, with both Democratic and Republican governors occupying the statehouse — at the same time that it added just one campus to its vaunted university system, UC Merced.”

Price also writes that the majority of other states have invested more into its education system than the Golden State. “Since the late 1970s, California has fallen from first in the nation in per-pupil spending, nearly to the bottom at number 48. With California’s annual budget falling from $103 billion three years ago to $80 billion currently during what’s often called the Great Recession, schools — including the world class University of California system — continue to face deep cuts in funding, fewer teaching positions, and a reduced ability to educate students.”
Uninsured Californians: A new UCLA study shows the number of uninsured Californians is climbing with the increase of layoffs and the deepening recession.

Appearing in The Los Angeles Times [3], the reporter writes a jump of nearly 2 million uninsured people in 2009 from two years ago. “Nearly 1 in 4 Californians under age 65 had no health insurance last year, according to a new report, as soaring unemployment propelled vast numbers of once-covered workers into the ranks of the uninsured.

The state’s uninsured population jumped to 8.2 million in 2009, up from 6.4 million in 2007, marking the highest number over the last decade, investigators from UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research said.”

The Times reporter notes that though the federal leaders are pushing for health care reform, state officials may cut more to public health services.

“The new UCLA estimates arrive as President Obama and congressional Democrats scramble this week to finalize an agreement on healthcare reform. Democrats who are pressing the overhaul say it would expand health insurance to tens of millions of uninsured people across the country.

Yet even as leaders in Washington seek to expand coverage, California officials are wrestling with budget proposals by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to cut or eliminate publicly-funded insurance programs that critics say cover more than 2.5 million low-income children and their parents — some of whom lost coverage because of layoffs.”

Associated Press contributed to this report. Hoa Quach is the political editor. Follow her on Twitter [10] or add her on Facebook [11].

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Students, parents protest firing of Allatoona High teachers

By John Spink and Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Friday, May 14, 2010

About five dozen students and parents, carrying posters and chanting, spoke Friday for the Allatoona High School teachers whose contracts won’t be renewed next term because of budget cutbacks.

They waved hand-made signs. They whooped and chanted “save our teachers” and cheered when passing cars honked. It was a peaceful demonstration held before classes started.

“We want to be the voice for them,” said Hope Manning, whose two children attend 2-year-old Allatoona.

Four of 15-year-old Ryan Manning’s eight teachers lost their jobs, including one who teaches physics and another who teaches history. Her daughter, Ashley, will lose her soccer coach.

“I believe this is a proper way to fight for our school and to fight for our teachers,” Ashley Manning, 16, said while standing in front of her school . “We had a lot of cuts and most of our coaches were cut. I’m hurt. I’m devastate. I can’t believe they would cut this many at Allatoonoa.”

More than a dozen Allatoona High School teachers -- including the head coaches of the school’s football, basketball, baseball and soccer teams -- were told earlier this week that their contracts would not be renewed.

"These education professionals deserved better because it’s not right to have to tell good employees they no longer have a job," said Jay Dillon, spokesman for the Cobb school system.

The Allatoona teachers are among 734 Cobb County school district employees -- including 579 teachers -- cut Wednesday when the Board of Education approved a $819.4 million budget. The school system was facing a $126.7 million deficit, much like financial problems hitting many Georgia schools.

" What we are experiencing is the effect of six years of austerity cuts by the state, and now those austerity cuts have been compounded by declining local property values," Dillon said. "An even bigger fear is that if economic conditions don’t improve soon, we could be in a similar, or worse, situation next year. We’re seeing some frustration and angst, and that’s understandable. We’ve lost a lot of really good educators."

Cindy Wilson’s son, Troy, is also losing half his teachers. “It’s cutting us deeply. It’s devastating,” Wilson said “It’s a new school. They brought a lot of these teachers on just to help build the program. They got us crawling. They got us walking a bit. And then they knocked our knees out from under us. It’s hurtful they are taking all our teachers.”

Mark Davis, a 16-year-old sophomore, said a Facebook page, Keeping Good Teachers in Cobb, was created just a day ago and it already has 500 followers.

Davis said several teacher-coaches went out of their way to take care of their students and athletes.

“This is wrong,” Davis said.