County Funding for I-SS

According to an article in Sunday’s Record & Landmark, Iredell County will fund I-SS 29.2 million dollars for the upcoming school year. This is several million dollars less than what was requested by I-SS. I am including a copy of the I-SS request below. The article quotes I-SS Chief Financial Officer Melissa Wike as stating that for this fiscal year the district was given 104.8 million dollars from the state. Thus the county funds do make up a significant part of the overall school budget. It should be noted that I-SS has much flexibility in how it spends the county funds.

The Record & Landmark articles also quotes Brady Johnson as stating that I-SS will wait to see how the state budget pans out before making any concrete decision about going forth with I-SS's contingency plan. The contingency plan includes a 2 percent pay furlough for administrators for the second straight year; the elimination of 25 positions through attrition; making Student Resource Officer positions 10 months instead of 11 months; decreasing local supplements for classified and certified teachers by 2 percent; and reducing the central office budget by 19 percent.

You can use the link below to access the web version of the Record & Landmark article about the school budget.

District will wait on state budget

One item in the I-SS proposed county budget is $8,445,946.32 for Supplements, Longevity, and Annual Leave. Two percent of that amount is $168,918.93. That means that two percent of the teacher supplements would be less than 168.9 thousand dollars. Certainly I-SS can make cuts without taking away from teachers’ supplements. In the same proposed budget there is over 3.1 million dollars for Instructional Support. Does this include the funds for the IFs and the supporting cast at the ADR center? If so, there is certainly some money that could be cut in that budget.

I-SS Proposed County Budget

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Buddy Hemric's Letter to the Editor

The following is Buddy Hemric's 'Letter to the Editor' that was published in Saturday's Record and Landmark. Buddy has given me permission to post the letter. The wording is a little different from that which was printed in the paper. This is the version that Buddy provided to me and I assume it is what he provided to the newspaper. The Record and Landmark reserves the right to edit submitted letters and in my experience they exercise that right quite liberally.

This past year the ISS school system lost 50 teachers due to retirement or teachers leaving the system. Because of budget cuts at the state & local levels of government these teachers were not replaced. This has caused an increase in class size to 31 pupils per class. There are 35 teachers in the system that do not teach in a classroom. They are called IF Models. I.F. stands for "Instructional Facilitators". What is wrong with this picture?

Of the 35 IFs I found salaries for 26 of them ranging from $36,670 to $63,453. I must note this is an old list and may not be exact. The total cost of these "non-teachers" on this scale is $1,275,475.00. That will average out to $49,056.73 per "non-teacher". With 35 on the payroll at this average these "non-teachers" cost the taxpayers $1,724,086 dollars per year with no return for our kids, and 50 teacher positions left empty.

Buddy Hemric

NC Budget Goes to Governor

The following is from the Record and Landmark web site.

The North Carolina General Assembly has approved a $19 billion state budget for the spending year that started a month ago. The Senate and House voted Wednesday to give the budget final legislative approval.

Gov. Beverly Perdue said she would reluctantly sign into law the package that includes higher taxes and reduced services.

The budget leaves up to local school districts — now just weeks away from a new school year — to decide how to handle their share of $225 million in cuts.

The following is from the NCAE Daily Political Briefing.

In the final budget, the General Assembly fully funds class size in grades K-12 and restores teacher assistant funding. However, local school districts can make some discretionary cuts within rules to be established by the State Board of Education in two weeks.

I met with Mr. Brady Johnson today and he said that he has seen some of the budget information. Obviously, he has not had an opportunity to see how it would impact I-SS. I will have more about my meeting with Mr. Johnson in a subsequent post.

NC Budget

The following is taken from today's NCAE Daily Political Briefing.

Despite media reports that a budget deal is done, class size is still being negotiated in the 11th hour by Governor Bev Perdue, Speaker Joe Hackney & Senate Pro Tem Marc Basnight.

On Friday night, the budget deal was done. According to the media, the House and Senate budget writers in Room 612 struck a deal where class size would not be harmed in grades K-12 and teacher assistant positions would be restored. Then came the "but."

Under the agreement, local school districts would be given a "discretionary" cut and returning part of their allocations back to the state. In order to find the money, school systems would be allowed to increase class size in grades 7-12. Governor Perdue was not pleased with this and dispatched her team to open negotiations on this issue. The General Assembly needs the governor's signature on the budget in order to become law.

Governor Perdue's position on protecting classroom learning from cuts is opposed by the NC School Boards Association and the NC Association of School Administrators. In an email message sent to its members today, NCSBA wrote that the "governor is asking the General Assembly to go in the wrong direction."

"Grades 7-12 are critical years for students, just as the early grades are," said NCAE President Sheri Strickland. "Children are at risk of dropping out, they're faced with incredible pressures, and they're going through life changes. They need more teachers in their lives, not less."

Strickland called on members to voice their concerns to the General Assembly directly today. A budget is reportedly being printed this afternoon for distribution to members this evening at 7 p.m.

"NCAE members need to call their representatives and senators today," said Strickland. "If you're in the game, stay in the game until the whistle blows, and if you're not, we need you now. The next two days are critical for student learning and your jobs."

The telephone number for the General Assembly is (919) 733-4111. Tell them to protect class size in all grades, restore teacher assistant positions and protect K-12 public education. The operator will forward you to your Senator and Representative.

I would also like to add that, at tonight's Committee of the Whole meeting Mr. Johnson also asked people to contact their legislators and ask them to finalize the budget so that the school system can also finalize its budget.

Here is a list of the e-mail addresses for the Iredell County Representatives to the General Assembly.

Rep. Julia C. Howard Email: Julia.Howard@ncleg.net

Rep. Darrell G. McCormick Email: Darrell.McCormick@ncleg.net

Rep. Grey Mills Email: Grey.Mills@ncleg.net

Rep. Mitchell S. Setzer Email: Mitchell.Setzer@ncleg.net

Senator Austin M. Allran Email: Austin.Allran@ncleg.net

Senator James Forrester Email: James.Forrester@ncleg.net

Senator Fletcher L. Hartsell, Jr. Email: Fletcher.Hartsell@ncleg.net

Committee of the Whole Meeting

I attended the I-SS Committee of the Whole meeting last night. As you might suspect much of the time was spent talking about the budget for next year. The Statesville Record and Landmark has much of the information in today's print edition and posted on-line. There was a lot of bad news but I did get the impression that the Board and Dr. Holliday were sincere in their desire to retain all employees and especially teachers. The biggest concern seemed to be with respect to the teacher assistants. The state is considering no longer funding teacher assistants for the third grade. Of course this would mean that it would be difficult to retain all of the teacher assistants. It would also impact the running of the school buses since many of the teacher assistants are also bus drivers. They did say I-SS might be able to hire some of the fired teacher assistants as part-time bus drivers. I am sure that is not much consolation for those teacher assistants. There was also talk about changing assistant principals from 12 month contracts to 11 or 11.5 month contracts but no one suggested reducing the number of Central Office administrators. In my opinion, and in the opinion of others, I-SS has too many administrators and that I-SS could save some money by eliminating a few of them. Dr. Holliday did mention that if they did away with the Instructional Facilitators, those individuals would go back into the classroom and then I-SS would probably have to fire some non-tenured teachers since the Facilitators are tenured and have seniority. I think I-SS could keep those teachers if they did eliminate a few of those Central Office administrators. Dr. Holliday also stated that the Instructional Facilitator model is funded through Title I, Title II, and IDEA funds. Considering that the current implementation of the Instructional Facilitators is to enforce the Baldrige plan, is that really the proper use of those funds? Speaking of the Baldrige plan, another issue mentioned last night was that the fact that teachers were going to be asked to do more work for less pay. Wouldn't this be a great time to tell teachers that if they wanted to continue doing all the Baldrige paperwork in their classes they could do so, but that it would also be quite acceptable to use a different teaching method in their classrooms.

This post was written by Paul Klaene.

NC House Budget

The following was taken from the NC Department of Public Instruction web site.

www.dpi.state.nc.us/newsroom/news/2008-09/20090521-01

NEWS RELEASES 2008-09 :: MAY 21, 2009

STATEMENT FROM STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION CHAIRMAN AND CEO BILL HARRISON AND STATE SUPERINTENDENT JUNE ATKINSON ON POTENTIAL BUDGET CUTS TO EDUCATION

"It is our hope that the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education's budget draft is only a beginning and that there is much more discussion ahead. It is clear the state faces an extremely difficult economic situation, and that sacrifices will have to be made. The 11 percent budget cuts outlined by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education are severe and would have a significant negative impact on our classrooms and our schools."

Following is a sample of the proposed cuts:

• Reduction of the length of the school year for students by five days in fiscal year 2009-10 and five more days (total of 10) in fiscal year 2010-11. This would reduce instructional days to 175 in 2009-10 and to 170 in 2010-11 (rather than the current 180).
• 6,005 fewer Classroom Teachers (increase class size teacher allotment by two per grade)
• 4,663 fewer Teacher Assistants (base formula on K-2 ADM rather than K-3)
• 354 fewer Instructional Support personnel (counselors, media specialists, social workers)
• 187 fewer Assistant Principals (increase allotment to 1:890 rather than 1:799)
• A 5 percent reduction to Non-instructional Support (clerical and custodians)
• Low Wealth Supplemental Funding – Fund counties at 90 percent and below. This adjustment would eliminate funding 13 school districts from Low Wealth funding. ( Craven, Cumberland, Davie, Gaston, Lincoln, Madison, Mitchell, Onslow, Pender, Perquimans, Union, Warren, Yancey)
• A reduction of $4.5 million to Small County Supplemental Funding
• A 10 percent reduction to More at Four
• Elimination of Learn and Earn Online
• Elimination of application fee payment for teachers seeking certification by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards.
• Elimination of Literacy Coaches
• A non-recurring reduction of $38 million to Textbooks
• Non-recurring reduction to staff development (no funding for two years)
• A 5.38 percent reduction or $6.5 million to Central Office
• An 11 percent reduction in FY 2009-10 and an additional 4 percent (total of 15 percent) reduction in FY 2010-11 to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This would eliminate 52 positions in 2009-10 and 19 more (71 total) in 2010-11.

Thanks to Janey for telling me about this. What will happen to the education of our children if this is passed? Surely there is a better way to balance the NC budget.

I-SS Should Cut Administrative Budget

I am writing this letter in response to the article by the Iredell-Statesville Schools stating that they are ready to present a leaner budget. In the article, Melissa Wike( I-SS Chief Financial Officer) states "We've looked at every possible option of where reductions can be made." How many of the reductions came from the central office staff is the questions citizens of Iredell County should be asking the school board. The budget for personnel at the central office rose over one million dollars this school year. The increase was due to the 7 new administrative positions at a total of $779,207 and the raises totaling $259,745 that 17 employees received. If the governor can take away .05% of all state employees salaries then our local board should be able to require the school system to cut administrative staff first. Every citizen should contact the board and let them know how they feel about cuts coming from classrooms in the form of larger classes because of not hiring teachers, doing away with some teacher assistants, and lower the amount of money that schools receive for supplies. The addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of the board members can be found on the I-SS webpage. Please support education in Iredell County by asking that those who directly impact the learning of our children be the last to feel the effects of this budget crunch.

This post was written by Janey Munday