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Mathews schools chief: Cut five teaching jobs to close deficit
By Jordan Cohen
VIENNA
Mathews Schools Superintendent Lee Seiple has proposed the elimination of five teaching positions in the school district by the end of the 2011-12 school year as part of a wide-ranging plan to eliminate more than $600,000 in projected deficit spending.
The board of education had ordered the superintendent last July to develop and produce the plan in 90 days. As part of his instructions, the superintendent was to include all savings generated by the planned closing of Neal Middle School at the end of the current school year and from retiring or departing staff who are not replaced.
The superintendent’s proposal estimates savings of nearly $290,000 when Neal Middle School is closed. Two teachers would lose their jobs along with such nonteaching employees as food service and custodial workers. Seiple also projects savings by not replacing retiring employees including one teacher and by eliminating two other teachers.
Other items in Seiple’s proposal include raising the cost of students’ sport participation payments from $50 per sport to $200, and cutting his contract from its current 200-day period down to 150 days, a savings of more than $28,000. The superintendent’s salary is slightly more than $91,000.
The plan also counts on passage of a 2-mill permanent improvement levy Nov. 2 to help cover the costs of improvements for Mathews High School necessitated by the transfer of the former Neal students.
“Some of these (recommendations) will affect the education of children in this district, but you set a goal for me, and I’ve done that,” Seiple said.
The superintendent’s plan did not go over well with Sandra Webber, teacher and president of the Mathews Education Association, which represents the district’s more than 60 teachers.
“He is cutting too many staff members,” Webber said. “We recently received an excellent rating [from the Ohio Department of Education], and now this will just decimate our curriculum.”
Seiple said that if his recommendations are accepted by the board, the district could actually have a revenue surplus of more than $25,000 by June 30, 2012.
“I have the information to back all of this up,” the superintendent said.
Board member Brian Stidham, who is treasurer of the McDonald village schools, said he is initially pleased with what the superintendent and staff put together. “I think it’s good as a starting point, but we have a lot to look at,” Stidham said. The board has scheduled a work session Nov. 3 to review Seiple’s proposals.