CARROLLTON — First-year teachers may be an endangered species around Mississippi this year, as school districts have to find places to cut spending. Despite an increase in state efforts to recruit and educate new teachers, they are unfortunate targets for districts that have to work on less.
In Carroll County, the state is expected to cut $229,333, or 5.2 percent, from Mississippi Adequate Education Program funds, which make up half the district’s budget. To allow for the reduction, the district is cutting eight positions, five of them certified.
Most of those cut were first-year teachers, Superintendent of Schools Billy Joe Ferguson said. “First-year teachers can be cut for any reason,” he said, adding, “We really hate to do it, but we have no choice.”
Three people retired this year — a smaller number than usual, he said — and those won’t be replaced, except as veteran teachers are moved from a closed program to another classroom. As for programs, three were cut at J.Z. George - the career discovery classes, a seventh-grade program taught by Alise Clark, the agricultural science and technology program taught by Mark Austin, and a GED program taught by Jan Pullen. All of these teachers were moved to other areas, he said.
George will keep its allied health program taught by R.N. Lynn Ross, and is bringing back a business, career and technology program that will be taught by Jeri D’Angelo.
Two teachers are retiring at George and one at Marshall Elementary, Ferguson said. A first-year classroom teacher at Marshall will also not be replaced. All Hathorn staff members have been moved to positions at Carrollton.
In the administrative office, one person is retiring, but may work part time, he said. Several other administrative positions are filled with part-time retired personnel.
In addition to these cost-cutting measures, all district personnel will take a three-day furlough during professional development days when students are not present. The furloughs will happen all over the state, as districts are allowed the three unpaid days off for personnel. They will be allowed to use 1½ personal days if they have them, Ferguson said, so that they will lose pay for 1½ days only. If they do not have the personal days, employees will lose three days’ pay. In Carroll County, teachers receive two personal days each year.
Even with these cuts, the budget will be extremely tight, Ferguson said. “We don’t have much in reserve, since last year we were cut $317,240 and we didn’t cut any people, though we didn’t fill positions of secretary at the bus shop and two special education positions when people retired or left,” he said. “We did have $350,000 in reserves. It’s frightening.”
He said the district likes to keep a 7 percent reserve on hand.
Not only did the school district take a large cut from state funds this past year, but local funds were cut as well, Ferguson said. “The value of timber in our area was lowered by $9 million, so the millage did not bring in what we had asked for, which is $1.92 million, an amount that hasn’t been raised in several years, he said.
“We’re down $43,000 so far this year in local funds,” he said. “We were penalized because we made our budget based on this 1.92 million we should have received from the county,” he said. The district receives half its monies from the state, one quarter from local taxes, and one quarter from federal programs.
“There were no new taxes, Ferguson said, and the value of a mill went down,” he said.
The only way to bring in new funds now is to increase student population, Ferguson said. The number increased by about 25 this year but has declined by about 200 since 2004.
“Our average daily attendance on which state money is calculated was better than usual this year, although the H1N1 flu hit us hard in the second month,” he said.
It is figured based on the second and third months of school.
Though cuts are being made, Ferguson said he is very pleased with the staff that remain in the schools. “We’ve had a very good year. We have an outstanding staff. With 90 percent of our students coming from poverty, we had the highest ACT averages ever, with half our seniors beating state averages.”
