Schools

Could School District Cut Its Central Office Staff By 30 Percent?

The district talked about its upcoming budget process at a news conference Wednesday.

The School District of Philadelphia may see a decrease of close to $300 million in state aid it receives next year. As a result, it may be forced engage in large-scale layoffs from its central office.

Deputy Superintendent Leroy Nunery said at a news conference at school district offices Wednesday that a preliminary estimate will reduce state funding by $292 million. That estimate comes after  Tuesday.

That represents an overall reduction of 10 percent in the district's overall funding compared to this year.

Find out what's happening in Chestnut Hill-Mt. Airywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The budget proposal eliminates state funding for all day kindergarten and takes away—in its entirety—state funding the district has been using to support its 74 charter schools, which serve more than 43,000 students, according to Nunery.

"Over 25 percent of the proposed cuts fall on the School District of Philadelphia, even though we, as a district, are just one of 500 Pennsylvania school districts, and we educate just over 10 percent of the state's public school students," Nunery said.

Find out what's happening in Chestnut Hill-Mt. Airywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

District officials, however, said that didn't necessarily mean something like all day kindergarten would be cut, if there were a need for it—it simply meant cuts needed to be made in some way to fill the gaps Corbett's budget would leave.

Nunery said the cuts would make it difficult to sustain the consistently higher test scores the district has enjoyed over the past eight years.

The amount of money spent on central office positions, Nunery said, would likely be reduced by about 30 percent, and 30 percent of the central office workforce will likely be laid off as well. Some executive positions from senior leadership will be eliminated.

"If we don't show first the impact here in squeezing down head count and reducing programs and reducing spending, we can't then go to the schools," he said. "We need to do it here first."

At the news conference, district officials talked about how federal stimulus funds would be not be available next year. They said they knew that would be the case—the funds from Washington were always temporary—but said they had been useful in increasing test scores while they were available.

Things could still change between now and when the district passes its final budget in June. A preliminary version of the budget will be introduced in April.

"We are not saying that those are the only problems we are going to face—these are the known problems to date," district Chief Financial Officer Michael Masch said at the news conference. "Could we have other challenges? Unquestionably."

Masch said the district is required to implement a balanced budget, however, which means that "remedial action" will be taken.

Nunery said the district will sit down with its labor unions to potentially renegotiate contracts, though he cautioned that process has not yet begun.

Corbett has called for a one-year freeze on teacher salaries, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has expressed its displeasure with Corbett's request.

"This budget slashes funding to the poorest students and, in the long run, will undermine our efforts to raise the educational achievement of Philadelphia residents," its president, Jerry Jordan, said in a statement.

Essentially, the big takeaway from Wednesday's news conference is that cuts are beckoning, even if it's unclear what they might be.

"Unless we get some relief from the funding reductions received today there is no way that the School District of Philadelphia next year can look exactly like the School District of Philadelphia today," Masch said.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Chestnut Hill-Mt. Airy