Teacher cuts to be weighed

Should Youngstown go down to the state minimum for teachers?
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A pending fiscal recovery plan for Youngstown City Schools will likely take a look at possibly cutting classroom teachers.
A state fiscal oversight panel assigned to help the schools overcome a budget deficit wants to have at least a preliminary version of a fiscal recovery plan ready for review by early March.
The Financial Planning and Supervision Commission is at the point where it needs school district officials to start identifying where additional spending reductions can be made, said Roger Nehls, chairman.
He wants to have a recovery plan already reviewed and ready for any necessary modifications by mid-March.
The state declared Youngstown to be in fiscal emergency Nov. 16, 2006, after the district said it would be running a deficit.
That red ink was projected a month ago to reach 10.7 million by the end of June 2007, but, a report by Carolyn Funk, district treasurer, to the commission Friday showed that the deficit is now expected to reach 11.5 million.
The difference is because of the continued expansion of charter school operations that are pulling children out of the city schools, she said.
State instructional subsidies follow the children, and Funk had initially estimated Youngstown would lose about 23.5 million to charter schools this year. The number now is expected to reach 24.9 million, she told the commission.
Nehls said a state Department of Education staffing analysis of the city school district shows there may be room to reduce the number of regular classroom teachers in Youngstown.
The district has 740 teachers, but only 334 of them, however, are classified as "regular classroom teachers." The rest represent federally funded positions, special education teachers and educational service people such as art, music and physical education instructors.
The ODE staffing analysis noted that Youngstown has 334 regular classroom teachers for 6,002 children in regular classrooms. State minimum staffing requirements for that number of pupils, however, is 240 teachers, an indication that Youngstown has 94 more than the state requires.
"There is continued opportunity for staff reduction in this district," Nehls said, although he also said he has no estimate yet on what that number should be.
He did say that he isn't sure any school district should have to operate at state minimum staffing levels.
He has repeatedly said that staff reductions are the only way to make sizable spending reductions.
Previous cuts
Nehls acknowledged that the district already has made significant staff cuts, referring to the elimination of 97 jobs (including 56 teachers) at a savings of 6.3 million in salary and benefit costs.
Funk, in her report to the commission, outlined between 14 million and 15 million in additional proposed nonteaching staff cuts over the next four years as the district downsizes by closing a number of old buildings while opening fewer new and renovated buildings.
Her projections also show a further reduction of 97 teachers over that same period. Youngstown's cost for one teacher is nearly 70,000 a year in salary and benefits, which would translate to about 6.8 million in additional spending reductions.
Nehls said Funk's projections are the beginning of the commission's recovery plan for the district.