The Montgomery County schools superintendent has announced a spending freeze, affecting nearly everything but repairs to the copy machine.
All vacancies are frozen, with exceptions for principals and teachers supplemented by federal dollars, such as special educators and English as a second language specialists. Currently, the schools have fewer than a dozen vacancies that qualify to be frozen.
Superintendent Jerry Weast instituted the freeze with an eye toward savings in preparation for the fiscal 2011 budget. County projections anticipate a gap of about $353 million, according to a memo issued to the school board. And while the economy is showing the first signs of recovery, local “tax revenue increases can be expected to grow at a very slow rate for several years,” according to the district’s chief operating officer.
What’s spared
Principals
Special-education teachers, speech pathologists and therapists
Head Start aides
Bus operators and attendants
Psychologists
Interpreters and translators
Home and hospital instructors
Lunch-hour aides
Instructional materials
Copier, printer and vehicle maintenance
Vacant classroom teacher and counselor positions will be filled with long-term substitutes, according to the memo. Substitutes don’t receive pricey benefits, but they also don’t face the same standards for teacher qualification. “Obviously [the freeze] is not what we would have wanted, but it’s certainly not unexpected given the economic times that we live in,” said Montgomery school board member Pat O’Neill.
Nearly all supporting staff positions are frozen, as are non-teaching teacher positions. The county employs hundreds of certified teachers in roles outside the classroom, such as professional development specialists and mid-level administrators.
A popular program to train leadership teams at selected elementary schools is effectively cut off by the freeze, though it had shown success in recent years in affecting improvement gains at struggling schools.
Middle school reform efforts, already slowed by consecutive years of tight budgets, will be further frustrated by a reduction in hours for teacher collaborative planning.
Savings and unexpected revenue last year produced about $20 million to supplement the current school year’s budget. But an expected increase in enrollment with prior reductions amounts to less flexibility this year, officials said.
“There is no realistic prospect of making a similar amount of savings in the current year,” the memo said.
The school district is entering into negotiations with the school employees’ unions this fall, on the heels of a freeze on pay raises for the current year.
The unions “have a desire to do what’s best for their memberships,” O’Neill said, “but they understand the gravity of the economic situation.
