I know I have not posted much lately. Believe me; I haven’t lost sight of the importance of sharing information about the inner workings of the school district, or the value of input from the public.
It has been quiet
The school board, the superintendent, and senior staff have been working diligently to make the budget cuts as painless as possible. This crisis is all consuming. No one ever wants to make cuts, but when they are necessary having the executives who have to make the tough decisions put past issues aside and focus on what is important is crucial.
It has been the school board’s priority from the beginning not to lay people off and to not let the budget cuts affect the classroom. We would not exist if it were not for the children. And as far as layoffs are concerned; I realize the impact we have as the largest employer in Hillsborough County on the community as a whole. We are a huge economic engine in our community and if we start laying people off the impact is going to have a much greater cost to the greater good of the community. Salaries constitute over 80% of our total budget. That means over 2.8 billion dollars feeds into sales taxes, property taxes, money spent at local restaurants, stores, etc. The importance of our impact, aside from educating our children, cannot be over looked.
Careful, considerate planning
For the past 2 ½ years or so we have been working realistically and diligently to foresee problems in advance. While other districts are closing schools, laying off employees, or giving across the board pay cuts. Through careful planning we have been able to cut almost a hundred million dollars from our budget without having to resort to any of these drastic measures. When I ran for office Hillsborough County School district had one of the highest administrative cost per student. I am proud to report that I just read a state report that list Hillsborough County School district as one of the lowest administrative cost per student in the entire state of Florida. We started cutting at the administrative level and continue to do so. This is positive progress.
The school board directed the superintendent to communicate every step of the way during these difficult times. I have received a lot of feed-back from employees that they have appreciated the communication. It has alleviated fears and kept the rumor mill to a minimum. We also understand that communication is a two way street and have afforded opportunities to our employees and the general public to share ideas on areas we could cut, and we have listened. We have used many of the ideas submitted and appreciate the input.
Please continue to feel free to share your ideas and concerns…we are listening.
