Harford County Public Schools officials are considering multiple reductions in the previously approved operating budget for the 2016-17 school year, as a deadline to act approaches and they find themselves $20 million in the hole on the revenue side.
Reductions are proposed in employees' advanced degree tuition reimbursements and instructional supplies. Also under consideration is cutting 32 full-time positions, closing the system's three aging indoor pools and eliminating the interscholastic swimming program. The pools are at Edgewood, Magnolia and North Harford middle schools.
Superintendent Barbara Canavan's staff presented a series of proposed reductions in spending, including the elimination of 32 full-time positions, to the Board of Education during a public work session Monday night. Board members must now decide by July 1 which reduction to implements to reconcile spending with revenues.
Canavan acknowledged some reductions will mean more work for all employees of the school system, which has a workforce of about 5,200 serving 37,500 students. Total system enrollment, however, has slipped annually this decade and is projected to continue declining through 2020.
"It is just what it is," Canavan said. "There is only so much money, and we have to [make] do with what we have; it's as simple as that."
Also under consideration is a final budget based on is a contingency salary increase plan for the system's 3,000-plus teachers.
The Harford County Education Association, the teachers' union, negotiated a three-year contract that includes a 2 percent cost of living increase and two salary steps worth about 8 percent and carrying a cost of almost $10 million.
Those figures were based on available funding, however, and as a hedge against final revenues, the union and the school board also agreed on a contingency of a 1.5 percent COLA and one salary step in fiscal 2017.
"We've been working tirelessly to come up with a budget that is based on the contingency salary package that the board had approved," Deborah Judd, assistant superintendent for business services, said.
The schools have benefited from some increases in revenue from Harford County and the state, which provide the bulk of the annual operating funds, but the additional funding is nowhere near the $457.8 million unrestricted operating budget the school board approved in early February, an increase of $26 million from the current budget.
Budget Director Eric Clark noted state revenue will be $2.3 million more than the superintendent and the board projected, and county funding will be $5.3 million more, but the latter figure is well below what was requested from the county – $27.6 million, according to HCPS figures.
Under final revenue projections, the school system will have $437.8 million in operating funds, including $233.5 million from the county, $196.03 million from the state, $390,000 from the federal government, $3.1 million from "other" sources and $4.75 million from the fund balance, Clark said.
As the previously approved operating budget was $457.8 million, however, there is still a shortfall of $20 million.
The fiscal staff reviewed each budget line item and how much spending for each has changed during the past three to four years, Clark said.
"We're at that point in HCPS history where we need to be a little bit aggressive with reducing some of these lines," he said.
The recommended cut of 32 positions, many of which are currently vacant, would save more than $1.9 million, Clark said. Twenty-three of those slots are teaching positions, though, which are not vacant.
Jean Mantegna, assistant superintendent for human resources, stressed those teachers could be moved to other full-time positions.
"No employee would be taken off the rolls," she said.
Among the cuts proposed are one occupied position in the HCPS central office in Bel Air, as well as vacant paraeducator and media technician slots, and slots in the technology department, building maintenance and purchasing.
Clark noted savings have been found by using software to create more efficient bus routes, plus steep drops in oil prices – that created $1 million in savings on utility costs.
The public comments from teachers and parents, which followed the budget presentation, were not favorable.
HCEA President Ryan Burbey proposed cutting instructional facilitator positions instead of teachers.
"There are much more efficient and efficacious means to deliver professional development," he said.
Instructional facilitators work with teachers, students and administrators to improve academic performance, and several principals have told the school board recently that instructional facilitators are key members of their staff.
Burbey has argued previously that the facilitators are essentially acting as evaluators of teacher performance, a job that used to be the responsibility of principals. He says HCPS spends over $1.3 million annually on instructional facilitators.
North Harford Middle School teacher George Curry protested cuts in "personnel who have a daily direct contact with students."
Karen Gaubatz, a fifth grade teacher at Church Creek Elementary School in Riverside, asked how position cuts would help her and her colleagues "grow as professionals to be those highly-qualified teachers."
She noted she must teach four distinct groups of students, each with their own needs, in one classroom.
"I can't be that teacher that you want me to be," Gaubatz said.
Southampton Middle School parent Hillary Doherty said her two sons have been in classes with 30 or more students.
"Don't cut teachers, and don't cut their salary increases," Doherty said.
The school board will meet June 13 and June 27 and could adopt the budget at either meeting.