CMS Debuts Billion-Dollar Budget Plan With School Board Brawl
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials this week unveiled a budget plan for the 2012-13 school year that tops out at $1.2 billion, an overall increase of 2.3 percent, and includes an ask of an additional $27.5 million from the county, after CMS endured wholesale financial calamity in the current year budget that saw the district receive an additional $26 million in county funding, restore upwards of 570 teacher and support positions, salvage a controversial Bright Beginnings program of questionable merit, and dole out more than $1 million in contract extensions to top administrators.
Wait a minute, that last part went way off script – at least the one that interim superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh was reading from as he recounted CMS’s recent history of woeful financial straits to justify his gimme-more budget.
CMS parents who have been financially burdened by pay-to-play middle school sports, self-financed AP testing, transportation cuts and revamped bell schedules that were implemented this year as cost-saving measures, however, can breathe a sigh of relief as the spending-increase budget seeks to return normalcy on those fronts.
Wait a minute, that’s not right either; the budget calls for holding the status quo on all those cuts. Instead, the spending plan seeks nearly $5 million for so-called new initiatives, including the addition of multi-media support for CMS’s already massive PR machine ($215,000), an expansion of the truancy court program ($75,000), and increased staffing levels at middle schools and high schools ($4.3 million).
“I think we’re trying to be reasonable with this ask,” Hattabaugh said of his proposed budget, adding that the district was at a critical juncture to rebuild in core areas. That would include, apparently, the move this year to shrink the debilitating iPad gap. Although Hattabaugh was quick to note that CMS isn’t really spending $10 million on iPads for teachers and students, as the district’s PR department had previously indicated. The total is actually $3.5 million, he said, which is slated for “personal learning devices” that could include iPads. An additional $6.6 million is being used to expand the wireless network in schools, Hattabaugh said of the spending that the school board had approved last year.
A bulk of the spending increase embedded in Hattabaugh’s newly unveiled budget, nearly $20 million, would go toward salary increases for school personnel, covering 2 percent of the proposed 3-percent salary bumps. The remaining 1 percent would come from funding redirections of existing revenue. The push for raises, Hattabaugh said, comes after a stretch that saw most school employees slog through the recession with stagnant paychecks.
And what better way to foster good will with county officials who would be supplying the money for CMS (a total ask of nearly $356 million, up from $328.3 million this year) than to start sniping at those same officials.
“The county anticipates $35 million more in revenues and they plan to use a major portion of it to provide increase in salary to their own staff like they did last year, when our staff suffered through a third year of no increases, and use the remainder for other items,” said school board member Eric Davis. “I perceive that all we’re asking for our employees is the same thing the county is able to decide for their own.”
Board member Richard McElrath took it a step further, declaring that teachers who haven’t seen their paychecks grow over the last few years have actually experienced salary cuts.
“We say that teachers haven’t had a raise in four years and it sounds like they’re still getting the money,” McElrath said. “But are they, when you look at prices going up from the grocery store to the gasoline tank? Couldn’t a rise in prices be a cut in their salary?”
“It would feel that way,” responded CMS Chief Financial Officer Sheila Shirley, “but their salary is still the same.”
In any event, the request of $27.5 million in additional funding from the county will be a tough sell, likely requiring either compensating spending cuts for county programs and services or upwards of a 3-cent tax hike. Neither would be typical during an election year for county commissioners, who are busy trying to earn votes with promises of lower taxes or buying votes with promises of increased services.
Which means school officials will need to make a strong case for their requested funding increase, presenting a united front to both the public and county leaders that shows a seriousness of purpose in backing CMS’ goal of bolstering student achievement.
So naturally, minutes after district officials debuted their budget proposal, school board members turned the meeting into a sparring session. The dust-up was triggered by an effort to seek clarification on whether board members still fully supported the guiding principles used to drive the district’s student achievement goals (under the umbrella of the board’s so-called theory of action) and whether the board was still committed to supporting Project LIFT, an initiative that would pump $55 million of private money into helping West Charlotte High and eight of its westside feeder schools.
The board had endorsed both of those items during its retreat earlier this year, but questions lingered after board members McElrath and Joyce Waddell paid impromptu visits to LIFT schools, where the duo drew criticism for their treatment and questioning of staff. The visits even prompted Hattabaugh to fire off a memo that criticized board members for bullying school staff at Thomasboro Elementary:
The Board members spoke in a denigrating way about one of the teachers on a work team to her Thomasboro colleagues as they gathered for a meeting. The work team’s discussion of the challenges facing the school was characterized as “dirty laundry” that should not be aired in public. The Board members suggested to several teachers that they had been tricked or treated unfairly in matters of salary. They spoke in a critical way about Project L.I.F.T. to several teachers and the principal.
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What message has been sent to staff by these actions? How can teachers avoid the conclusion that speaking up can lead to a visit from Board members who will bully and belittle them in front of their colleagues?
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I recognize that my speaking out in this way puts me at some personal risk. However, the behavior reported to me by the staff at Thomasboro was so egregiously unfair to our teachers and staff that I cannot remain silent.
Davis said that in conversations with board members after the Thomasboro incident, a recurring theme he heard “was deeply seated beliefs, one of which was we [CMS] may be on the wrong path, the strategy we’ve been on the last five or six ears may be wrong.”
“It was voiced that if Project LIFT succeeds it would mean that we could educate students anywhere, regardless of our student assignment plan, and that we really ought to go back and student assignment ought to be our primary objective,” Davis said. “That was the message I received.”
Everything CMS is trying to accomplish, Davis said, hangs on the board’s theory of action; if board members thought that was headed down the wrong path, he said, “put an item on the agenda, describe the alternative path we should take, and let’s vote on it.”
An “alternative path” that features student assignment as a primary objective, of course, being code in education circles for a return to race-based busing.
Board Chairman Ericka Ellis-Stewart, who replaced Davis at the helm this year, bristled at the direction the conversation was headed, sparking just the type of squabble the board needs as it tries to hire a new superintendent and pocket an additional $27.5 million from the county.
“We did have a vote on the theory of action for change, but we also had a significant amount of discussion saying there were many items that needed further clarification and definition,” Ellis-Stewart said.
“When did we vote on it?” countered Davis.
“We agreed we’d support it in our retreat,” said Ellis-Stewart.
“Then our actions need to back that up,” Davis reasoned.
“Madame Chair, you were talking and he interrupted you,” McElrath interjected. “Please finish what you were saying.”
“What I was saying is we explored the theory of action and the people sitting around this dais indicated support for it,” Ellis-Stewart said. “But we also had a significant amount of conversation about the need to further define the terms and what they mean to us, as we implement and go about the business of educating students.
“I don’t think that taking the opportunity to talk through what the details look like and what the implementation strategies look like means that we’re looking to change direction,” Ellis-Stewart said. “I don’t think you should make that assumption.”
All of which left Davis and others scratching their heads.
“What I heard from your comments,” he told Ellis-Stewart, “is we are committed to this theory of action for change, we stand behind it. We might want to make minor modifications to it, but we’re committed to it. Is that what I heard?”
“If that’s what you think you heard,” snipped Ellis-Stewart, who has been championing better communications and dialogue between board members.
Davis slumped in his chair behind the dais and shot Ellis-Stewart an incredulous stare.
“What’s your question, Mr. Davis?” she asked.
“I’m just seeking confirmation. Are we committed to our theory of action?” Davis repeated.
To which Ellis-Stewart remained equally elusive: “At our retreat people said that they are committed but we want to have further dialogue, and I hear us saying we’re committing ourselves to that process.”
The same ambiguity held sway when board member Tim Morgan sought clarification on the board’s backing for Project LIFT.
“We voted to support Project LIFT,” Ellis-Stewart said. “That doesn’t preclude members of this board from asking clarifying questions about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.”
At which point Waddell, last seen bullying staff at Thomasboro Elementary, weighed in by accusing her colleagues of launching personal attacks.
“There’s nothing personal about this,” countered school board member Rhonda Lennon. “It’s just a discussion I thought we should have in public.
“The profile for hiring a new superintendent is based on our mission, vision, core beliefs and theory of action,” she said. “We need to be reassuring anybody who applied that we’re operating under the same.”
Ellis-Stewart said that those issues would be handled during the board’s upcoming policy meeting, and scolded board members Lennon, Davis and Morgan for their grilling of colleagues.
“That’s what we’ll do [at Friday’s meeting], facilitate conversation where people can put ideas and perspectives on the table in positive dialogue,” Ellis-Stewart said. “I don’t know that having the three of you ganging up relative to the theory of action allows that type of interaction.”
None of which won any points with Lennon.
“If my name was in that applicant pool [for superintendent] I might be pulling it out tonight after hearing this discussion,” she said. “I can’t figure out what we’re doing.”
So, um, sure, why wouldn’t county commissioners give these guys an additional $27.5 million?
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