School Board Approves Pink Slip Budget
CMS officials have in the past roundly conceded that the learning communities, formed three years ago at a cost of about $10 million, do little to bolster academic achievement. But in voting against McGarry’s motion to ditch the administrative outposts, Merchant and Lennon both argued that it wasn’t the school board’s place to dictate operational management to Superintendent Peter Gorman.
“We hire Dr. Gorman to determine how he thinks he can best manage his staff, to have the layers of management between him and 170 schools,” Lennon rationalized. “To think he could possibly supervise those – we have 180 days during the school year. I guess, Dr. Gorman, that means you and [Chief Academic Officer] Ann Clark could visit each school one time. That’s how much supervision those schools would have.”
Assuming, of course, Gorman could pull himself away from his travels to actually spend a full year in the district he is paid more than $300,000 a year to run.
Speaking of traveling, the approved budget includes a plan to eliminate neighborhood bus stops for 11 magnet schools and replace them with shuttle stops to which students would have to find their own rides. The budget does, however, maintain current bell schedules for three magnets – Davidson IB, Piedmont and Smith Language Academy – but at a price. To fill the funding gap some students will have to pay fees to take AP and IB exams, which district officials say will generate about $1.4 million. The state will still pay exam fees for students who qualify for free- or reduced-price lunches; other students who pay full freight for eats will also now be forking over about $85 a pop for the AP exam fees and $135 for the IB exam.
Tinkering around the edges of the budget, the board voted Tuesday night to finally pull the plug on CMS-TV, which would save about $350,000. The budget spares $50,000, which the district will use to find some other way to broadcast board meetings live on TV and the Internet. Board members Tate and White voted against eliminating the district’s TV channel.
“For the amount of money that this is,” Tate opined, “we’re getting a lot more than cutting it will gain.”
The draconian cut means CMS will somehow now have to scrape by with an annual PR and communications budget of about $2 million.
While CMS now has an approved budget, it doesn’t necessarily have a final one. That will ultimately depend on the funding levels, or lack thereof, it receives from the county and state. County Manager Harry Jones is slated to unveil his recommended budget next week and commissioners won’t adopt a final version until June. Meanwhile, state legislators begin huddling next week to hammer out their budget.
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