DeKalb schools must cut staff or raise taxes

By Megan Matteucci

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

DeKalb County class sizes likely will grow, teacher pay will be cut and 154 central officer workers will lose their jobs under budget proposals unveiled Friday.

Almost every area of the state’s third largest school district will be affected by what officials are calling the worst budget crisis in its history. The only option to spare impacting the education of DeKalb’s 101,000 students is to raise taxes, some board members said.

After only a week on the job, Interim Superintendent Ramona Tyson on Friday presented five proposals to cut the budget to meet an anticipated $88 million deficit in next school year’s budget.

“This is a precedent-setting task that requires very hard decisions,” she said.

Friday was the first unveiling of the full slate of cuts, which will be approved by the board on May 10. Part of the budget proposal calls for four elementary schools to be shut down at the end of the school year, which would save about $2.35 million.

The newest list of cuts includes laying off 154 central office workers, cutting JV athletics by 25 percent and getting rid of standardized testing in the first grade. Other possible cuts include paraprofessionals, counselors, media clerks and assistant principals.

Tyson also proposed increasing class sizes by one or two students and suspending the tax-sheltered annuity contributions for employees.

The only vote the board took on Friday was to issue contracts to about 8,000 teachers, principals and other certified staff with the option to reduce pay by as much as 6.25 percent.

Teacher contracts must be signed by April -- a month before the budget will be finalized, board Chairman Tom Bowen said.

“This does not bind the board to take any particular action; it just binds the board to leave the door open,” he said.

A 5 percent pay cut across the board would save the district $26 million, Tyson said.

Tyson revamped the items on the chopping block after the district learned the deficit had grown from $56 million to $88 million, and hundreds of parents complained about cuts to pre-kindergarten, magnet and Montessori programs.

Mother of three Marty DeStefano is pleased to see DeKalb is now looking at keeping the district’s 104 pre-kindergarten classes but doesn’t think the district’s proposal to cut paraprofessionals from those classrooms makes sense.

“I’d like them to bring 20 4-year-olds up here and let them run around. Let them see if one person can care for them all day, especially when you’re talking about increasing class sizes” said DeStefano, who lives in Tucker.

After seeing that 89.1 percent of the district’s operating budget goes to salaries and benefits, Tyson decided to do more layoffs. The DeKalb figure is more than school systems in Clayton, Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett and Henry counties spend, Tyson said.

The central office layoffs -- which include everyone from assistant superintendents to maintenance workers -- would save the district $11.5 million.

Any pay cuts or furlough days also would cover administrators, including Superintendent Crawford Lewis, who got a $15,000 raise in January.

Lewis remains on leave while the district attorney’s office investigates possible wrongdoing involving the school system’s multimillion dollar construction program. Tyson was appointed interim superintendent several hours after investigators searched school offices and Lewis’ Stone Mountain home.

Board member Eugene Walker said the only option he supports is raising property taxes.

“We can choose to balance this budget by cutting and cutting or we can decide to bring in additional revenue,” Walker said. “We owe it to our children to relieve their suffering. We owe it to our personnel to improve their morale.”

Raising property taxes by 2 mills would generate $36 million for the district. But it also would place the school system’s taxes at the highest they can go without getting approval from the legislature.

Rhonda Johnson is not willing to open her checkbook and pay more taxes on her home.

“I don’t want to pay more, but I still want a quality education for my child,” said Johnson, whose son is in pre-kindergarten at Midway Elementary School in Decatur.

Parents like Johnson and DeStefano are worried about program cuts and teachers’ pay, but the biggest concern is the threat of their local school closing.

“My concern is a lot of schools they are thinking about closing are in south DeKalb,” Johnson said. “I want to see everybody’s enrollment before they close my school.”

Board member Jay Cunningham said he thinks that there still are a lot more cuts that can be made before cutting at the school level, including getting rid of a surplus of buses, offering an early retirement program and outsourcing services like maintenance and security.

Despite the dire budget situation, some board members are continuing to advocate that certain programs remain.

Board member Sarah Copelin-Wood wants the technology program at Clifton Elementary School saved and board vice chair Zepora Roberts is fighting to save the Fernbank science program.

But those programs surviving is very unlikely given that the school system could see the deficit grow even more as the county’s tax digest and state aid shrink.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you are fooling yourself and your community, if you don’t think we have some very tough decisions to make right now,” board member H. Paul Womack said. “I don’t like it. It’s not pleasant. But our entire county’s future rests in the education of our kids. ... We cannot protect our own little areas of concern.”