Monday, January 9, 2012

CMS: No budget bombshells yet

It was one year ago that Peter Gorman laid out a plan to cut $100 million from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools budget by eliminating 1,500 jobs. On Tuesday interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh kicks off budget planning for 2012-13, but spokeswoman Kasia Thompson says it won't be that kind of detailed outline.

Last year the board had already spent months discussing school closings and other cost-cutting measures.  The unusually early budget proposal came in response to projections that CMS would face a third year of dire cuts  --  or,  the skeptics might say,  in time to mobilize parents and advocates to lobby for more money.  In the end,  CMS avoided the worst of the cuts and layoffs.

This year brings three new board members who have never done a CMS budget,  and Thompson says the plan is to start with a broad-strokes presentation.  Hattabaugh has already said he doesn't expect to lay off teachers,  though there could be some job cuts in other areas.  And he has said he'll unveil a proposal to ask the county for money to give teachers raises.

The 3:30 p.m. meeting at the Government Center is open to the public.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anyone think there will be $1.9 million left over to rewrite tests to account for new common core standards?

Wiley Coyote said...

The State should be the one coughing up money for teachers....

Retroactive....

Anonymous said...

Millions more are needed, for CMS!

Just getting the budget ball rolling.

Anonymous said...

With no lobbyist and Hugh as the point man (interm) their will be little money from the state and slightly less from the County. We can all thank St. Peter Gorman for this and Eric Davis for not disclosing to the board/public last year. We hire 2 new media lackies and no lobbyist makes alot of sense. Were is all the money from the closed schools and lack of teachers?

Anonymous said...

Some of the money is wasted on the caretaker administration and more for restoring Spaugh, Smith and other facilities for office space. Even more will be contracted to TFA and Teach Charlotte to replace the career teachers leaving next week and the rest of the year.

Getting Serious About Education said...

The new Board of Education should eliminate failed CMS experimental staff positions without delay. CMS should name positions that other North Carolina school systems do not have and then justify their existence. If these positions do not pay their own way and or directly enhance classroom instruction cut them. The educrats will cry loudly, but CMS will survive. Bureaucracy becomes comfortable having extra bodies to answer the phone and to keep high paid administrators insulated from doing their real jobs. CMS can do more with less while serving this community like it is home.

Anonymous said...

The problem is that CMS is adding to these positions. All of these new PR and "communications" hires are uneeded. Is this not what you pay the Super hundreds of thousands of dollars for?

Cobitz,Baxter and the rest of the PR cohort need to go!