cseward@newsobserver.com
"We're going to make it work," Tata says.
RALEIGH -- More Wake County school employees will be laid off because of state budget cuts, but school leaders said Friday that none of them will be teachers or teacher assistants.
Wake Superintendent Tony Tata said that a combination of federal dollars and non-classroom cuts will allow the state's largest district to absorb education funding cuts in the recently adopted state budget. He said Wake plans to lay off some custodians and central office employees to avoid directly affecting the classroom.
School leaders around the state have railed against the legislature's override of Gov. Bev Perdue's veto of the $19.7 billion budget that they say will lead to the loss of 13,000 education jobs. Tata called the state cuts "draconian" Friday but declined to join in some of the harsher words other superintendents used.
"This budget, we're going to make it work for Wake County, and we're going to find a way to have the best possible instructional support for our students," Tata said at his weekly news conference. "I'm not going to get involved in political statements here."
Tata had built his budget on Perdue's call for a 5 percent cut in state K-12 education funding. Tata had lobbied legislators to go with 5 percent. The adopted state budget would cut K-12 funding about 6 percent.
Tata said the state budget will lead to additional cuts in Wake, including an additional $8 million discretionary cut. Among the new cuts are:
Some custodial positions. Some schools have custodians on staff while others contract with a company for the work.
More central service positions - employees who aren't based at school. But even then, Tata pointed to how a recent outside audit had found Wake's administrative staffing to be extremely lean.
School board member Kevin Hill also pointed to the recent audit to warn that the administrative cuts would indirectly affect students by cutting into services that schools will need.
"We're still selling our students short with the cuts that we're going to make," Hill said.
Pay cuts, not layoffs
Wake has already made some layoffs in anticipation of the budget cuts, including eliminating more than 200 clerical and administrative positions.
Wake is also still planning on cutting pay for teacher assistants and assistant principals in lieu of laying them off, Also, some teachers and teacher assistants whose contracts expire at the end of this month may not be rehired.
Tata warned that Wake still faces the possibility of large-scale teacher layoffs next year when the county loses $27 million in one-time federal funding. He said Wake officials have nine to 10 months to determine how to deal with the issue.
"We have about a $27 million cliff next year that we face, and we recognize that," Tata said. "My intent was to stabilize the system in a pretty turbulent year and begin to strategically plan on how to get at that 27."
Tata also noted Friday that legislators cut Wake's transportation funding by $1 million at the same time that they're requiring students to spend five more days a year in class. He said it would cost $500,000, or $100,000 a day, in transportation to add the five days for this fall.
Tata will ask the school board Tuesday to seek a state waiver from having to add the five additional school days.
