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As Mountain View Whisman prepares to cut at least $9 million in annual expenses starting next school year, the district is considering laying off at least 15% of its district office staff.
Administrators are finalizing which positions to recommend cutting and plan to bring that list to the school board next month, Superintendent Jeff Baier told the board members at a Thursday, Dec. 18, meeting. Currently, district officials expect to propose laying off the equivalent of at least 18 full-time employees, which would save about $4 million annually.
“We know that these aren’t just dollar values, but these are human beings we’re talking about,” Baier told the Voice after the meeting. “When we’re talking about reductions of this size, it’s really not possible to achieve that without affecting people. These are people who we value, who work for our children and the children of this community, and so, we take very seriously the personal and human nature of these decisions that we’re going to make.”
For months, the school district has been grappling with projected budget shortfalls caused by stagnating property tax revenue and rising operating costs. District administrators have determined that they need to reduce annual costs by at least $9 million starting next school year in order to effectively tackle the issue.
During a special meeting in the first week of January, district administrators plan to present the findings of an outside firm they hired to evaluate current programs and suggest ways to save money while limiting the effects on students. After administrators have finalized recommendations on how to address the budget woes, the school board is slated to vote Jan. 29 on whether to initiate a formal Reduction in Force process to lay off district office staff.
“We are in a financial situation that is unavoidable, and we have to identify a way to do our work more efficiently,” Baier said. “Unfortunately, that means that we will have fewer people doing that work.”
If the district moves forward with a RIF, staff would be notified by March 15 if they could be laid off. Administrators have already had conversations with office staff members who might lose their jobs, Baier noted.
“It’s not about the quality of the work they’ve done, or their value, but it’s just really about the financial situation that we currently find ourselves in,” Baier said.
When asked what positions face the greatest risk of being laid off, Baier told the Voice that the layoffs will affect staff across the board. Positions in the district office include program directors, communication officers, occupational therapists and speech pathologists.
“It’s not any one type of position,” Baier said. “It’s looking at where we can create greater efficiency – still do the work we need to do for the students of the school district but recognizing we’re going to have to do it in a more efficient manner.”
Mountain View Whisman is expecting to run a $3.7 million deficit this school year, with even larger shortfalls projected for the next two school years, unless cuts are made, according to a November report to the school board. This is due to the district experiencing significantly slower growth in local property tax revenue, which is its main funding source.
Property tax revenue is calculated based on assessed values of properties within the school district’s boundaries. Over the last six years, assessed values in the district have grown an average of 8.79% annually, but this school year, they increased just 2.34%, Chief Business Officer Rebecca Westover previously told the Voice.
While the district has historically underestimated annual growth in assessed values, with actual figures coming in much higher, Baier said that this time is different because the numbers for the current year are already in and the county assessor’s office has told the district to expect two to three years of the same assessed value growth or less.
Didn’t MVWSD just spend $53.5 million to purchase the land under its “The Sevens” teacher housing complex?
Not good planing.
Oh I read they also turned around and sold some of the apartments to De Anza college so it ended up not costing them anything to buy the land.
I believe the money was moved from construction/maintenance projects, so it didn’t affect the staffing budget. It might have actually freed up some money since the debt payments are less than the lease for the land.