Massive funding and staffing cuts are on the table for Jefferson County Public Schools as the district grapples with a huge deficit.
The Jefferson County Board of Education will discuss during a meeting Tuesday.
I spoke with LPM's Bill Burton about what the board will consider. You can click the player above to listen to the conversation. The transcript below is edited for length and clarity.
Bill Burton: Jess, remind us why Jefferson County Public Schools is making these budget cuts?
Jess Clark: So the district has a massive funding shortfall. JCPS Superintendent Brian Yearwood, who has been here since last July, estimates the deficit at $188 million. It’s a number that took board members and the public surprise when staff presented it in the fall. Because under the previous superintendent, Marty Pollio, staff had put that figure at around 100 million dollars.
BB: Why did that number change so significantly,
JC: It’s not really clear and it hasn’t been explained well by anyone on the district’s staff. Overall, I think you can chalk it up to new leadership and a different philosophy of what responsible spending looks like. One major reason why a shortfall was predicted by both administrations is because hundreds of millions of dollars in federal COVID-relief funding has expired. Yearwood says under Pollio the district was trying to fund programs initially paid for with one-time expenses out of the general fund, like a nurse for every school, stipends for certain employees like bus drivers and custodians and teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools. And the income was just not enough to sustain all those things that JCPS has added since the pandemic.
BB: So what is in Yearwood’s plan to deal with the shortfall?
JC: Yearwood says this year, in order to get the district on track JCPS needs to cut $132 million. He’s presented a budget that makes about $142 million, which gives a $10 million. As of this taping the full details have not been provided, I think in part because the district is still negotiating with the various unions that represent school employees. But so far the biggest chunk of cuts will be to positions that Yearwood says are central office positions. He’s proposing $44 million in central office cuts and the elimination of 300 central positions.
BB: Who are these employees who work in central office?
JC: It covers a wide of variety of positions. They include people who work in multiple schools, administrators who oversee principals, folks who oversee curriculum developing and training, district finance, and people who work in offices that support special populations district wide, like students with disabilities and English language learners. And Yearwood says he’s doing that because the message he’s received from the community is that they don’t want the cuts to impact what’s going on at the school level. There’s also a general feeling among many, especially some Republicans in Frankfort that there is too much administrative overhead in JCPS and that more dollars should be directed toward school-based staff and student experiences.
BB: What else is on the chopping block?
JC: The plan revives a scaled version of a proposal to close and consolidate some schools. King Elementary in the Shawnee Neighborhood and Zachary Taylor Elementary, which is in the East end. It also makes millions of dollars in cuts to funding that has been going to schools with high shares of low-income students, students of color, and multilingual students. Those are populations that may need extra support or don’t have as much access to tutoring or extracurriculars as higher-income families. The proposal cuts stipends that had been going to bus drivers and teachers — and those stipends have been crucial in keeping staff around, especially on bus routes that are harder to staff and in schools that don’t draw a lot of applicants.
BB: Are there other options than these cuts?
JC: Well there are always different ways to slice and dice the cuts. But the other option would be to raise revenue, you know a tax increase. But Yearwood says he’s not going to recommend one. I think he recognizes that there’s not an appetite for one. The conversation about the deficit has tended to paint it as essentially a problem of overspending and mismanagement — this is something even JCPS’ own Chief Financial Officer has suggested, Eddie Muns, who himself was involved with crafting and selling those prior year budgets to the board. So for now I think leadership sees reduction in services as the only option.
