The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board is holding off for another month before taking a final vote on a budget for the coming school year, but 160 employees whose jobs apparently are on the chopping block received a stern letter earlier this week letting them know their position might soon be gone.
Several board members on Thursday expressed concern about the letter, sent to those employees Monday, saying it is premature to send out before the board settles on a budget and will push some employees to leave early unnecessarily.
“If I was one (of the 160), I would be looking for another job right now,” observed Board Vice President Carla Powell. “That’s just the mindset I’d have.”
Board member Patrick Martin had similar concerns.
“It’s going to ensure that the best of those employees would be going off to greener pastures,” Martin said.
Superintendent Sito Narcisse defended the letters as a courtesy, giving those employees advance warning of what may well happen.
The letters ended up sparking a mini-panic that the school system has already instituted a layoff, known as a Reduction in Force, or RIF, which it has not.
The language of the letter is sweeping at points.
“Therefore, it is my responsibility to give notice to all employees that there is a possibility that your position is affected,” read the letter, which was signed by Nichola Hall, chief human resources officer.
Martin questioned Hall as to why all employees were being notified. Turns out they weren’t.
“Typo,” explained Hall.
“Typo?” Martin responded, incredulously.
That’s when Hall revealed that only 160 employees received letters. And of those 160, only 86 people could ultimately lose their jobs. That’s because multiple people have the same job title, Hall explained.
In addition to letters, the school system held meetings with affected individuals. Hall said her staff met personally with most of those individuals, but some were out of town or unreachable.
Which jobs are ultimately eliminated depends on the details in the budget the School Board ends up adopting for the 2023-24 fiscal year, which begins Saturday.
Earlier this week, Narcisse presented four different draft budgets, differing only in how they handle employee play.
All four proposals would pull money from the General Fund, the district’s general operating budget that accounts for about 70% of all spending, or Proposition 3, a special fund for employee salaries and benefits that is supported by a 1-cent sales tax voters first approved in 1998.
The four proposals are meant to be stepping stones toward larger, permanent pay raises, but the proposals do not address how they will be funded after a year or two.
Thursday’s meeting featured discussions but no action on the four proposals. The board agreed to return in a week, on July 6, to try to narrow the four options to just two. A final vote on the budget is set to occur no earlier than July 24.
Here are the four options:
- Option 1: An 8% permanent pay raise for all employees. Proposition 3 would pay for teachers for the 2023-24 fiscal year, while the General Fund would pay for support workers.
- Option 2: A $2,000 one-time stipend for all employees paid for by Proposition 3.
- Option 3: A $3,000 one-time stipend for all employees, split between Proposition 3 and the general operating budget.
- Option 4: A $4,000 one-time stipend for teachers and a $2,000 one-time stipend for support workers funded by both Proposition 3 and the general operating budget. For teachers, this would increase to a $5,000 one-time stipend in fiscal year 2024-25 and a $6,000 permanent pay raise in 2025-26. For support workers, this would increase to a $3,000 one-time stipend in fiscal year 2024-25 and a $4,000 permanent pay raise in 2025-26.
Option 1 was first proposed May 18 when Narcisse first released his spending proposals for the 2023-24 fiscal year. Options 2, 3 and 4 grew out of the suggestions of school board members who did not see Narcisse’s plans as financially sustainable.
Narcisse told the board Thursday that he no longer favors Option 1 and is now supporting Option 4.
Leaders of one of the district’s two unions, the East Baton Rouge Parish Association of Educators, threw their support behind Option 2. Option 2 would have the least financial impact of the proposals, leaving behind a small surplus in general operations of $1.1 million. Option 4 would be unbalanced, requiring the district to draw down its reserves by $8.8 million.
Storm Matthews, an active member of the union, said retaining teachers and filling vacancies is going to take more than money.
“Let’s encourage our teachers, because money is going to make you stay if you’re treated like crap constantly,” Matthews said.
As the district’s general operation budget has gone through revision after revision, it has shifted from in balance to out of balance. To stay in the red, the school district would be forced to dip into its reserves, ranging from $1.1 million for Option 1 to $8.8 million for Option 4. That would run counter to the board’s practice over the past four years to approve a “balanced” budget where annual spending does not outpace revenue.
While spending estimates have changed, expected general operating revenue for 2023-24 has not. It continues to clock in at $544.3 million. That’s a 4.8% increase over 2021-22, but a 1% decrease compared to the current fiscal year.
Luckily, district reserves are as high as they have been in years. Unrestricted reserves left over would range from $92.3 million for Option 2 to $82.5 million for Option 4.
To keep finances in check, Narcisse is proposing cutting general operations by $30.9 million, slightly less than he originally proposed. Almost half of that is actual cuts, while the rest involves temporarily shifting those costs to other funding sources, primarily COVID relief funds.
As the budget has been revised, spending has inched up. For instance, he originally proposed eliminating four chief-level positions, but now is calling for just two to be eliminated. In a similar vein, he is proposing six fewer executive directors now as opposed to nine fewer.
The superintendent, however, has yet to identify publicly which of these top administrators he plans to let go.
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