Clayton County public school employees will get to keep $6.4 million in incentive pay but must take five furlough days by the end of June under a budget-cutting plan approved by the school board on Monday night.
The furlough days will help save the jobs of elementary school counselors and music and art teachers, but elementary gym teachers and those who work with students in in-school suspension programs weren't so lucky. Even after a spirited debate to hang onto physical education positions, the board voted to cut 60 physical education and ISS jobs.
District employees were given $6.4 million of $9 million in federal stimulus job-saving money late last year in exchange for attending professional development training, which must be completed by June. The money became a political and legal issue during last week's regularly scheduled meeting and the board tabled a decision until Monday night -- when it abandoned the idea of trying to retrieve the money. Monday's meeting drew a standing-room crowd as district workers came to learn the fate of their incentive pay and possible jobs.
"We're happy they saved elementary counselors and fine arts teachers," said Sid Chapman, Clayton County Education Association president. "But we're concerned for the P.E. and ISS and we're concerned about the furloughs." Chapman said it was his understanding that furloughs were likely to be used during the next school year, not this school year.
Monday's action was the latest in what's been a challenge for the board to stave off an anticipated $49 million budget deficit over the next two years. During the past few months the board has wrestled with numerous cost-cutting ideas ranging from shorter work weeks, longer school days, numerous school year calendar configurations to taking back $6.4 million in federal stimulus money sent to the schools last year to help save jobs. The board voted to give the money to workers just before Christmas last year.
"We didn't have the legal right to go after the Ed Jobs [stimulus] money," board chairwoman Pam Adamson said. "This move we made tonight is directly tied to their contracts."
The furlough days amount to a week's pay for district workers. School employees have up to a year to settle their furlough time, which essentially is a salary cut, if they can prove it will be a hardship on them to make up the days by June. Teachers already have four snow days to make up and two post-planning days slated for the end of May, Adamson noted.
"That would be a problem," said Janice Scott, an eighth-grade language arts teacher at Sequoyah Middle School. "That's a big chunk of money."
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