ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. — The Alamance-Burlington School Board says layoffs are the last resort. Tuesday board members discussed three different options.
Plan 1. Absorb existing vacancies in positions like high school counselors, assistant principals, and school nurses. This option would not result in any layoffs.
Plan 2. Reduce the number of months certain employees work. This would also avoid layoffs.
Plan 3. A plan that would result in some staff layoffs, including the elimination of some Assistant Principal positions, part-time Middle School Office Support Staff, eliminate 4th and 5th grade offerings at the ABSS Virtual School, and the elimination of Dual Language offerings at the middle school level.
While there are no plans to cut the Elementary Spanish Immersion program, a list of subscription programs could potentially be eliminated including Leader in Me and A+ Arts. While the tenets of these programs will continue with students participating in leadership opportunities and arts programming, the subscription costs will save the District an estimated $78,000.
The full plan can be viewed here: https://5il.co/2eoda
All of this is being talked about in order to make up for a financial shortfall of 3.2 million dollars.
The possibility of more than 60 layoffs has the school board putting their heads together.
"It's most important to me to find that there are ways we can cut or are there resources we haven't tapped into," Alamance-Burlington Board of Education Chair, Sandy Ellington-Graves said.
The district revealed it was in a budget crisis last November, months after the expensive mold issues. They say the possible layoffs aren't directly related and there are several other factors. They include increased staff benefits, substitute teacher costs, fluctuations in district insurance and rising utility costs.
"Particularly from the utilities standpoint, I think our utilities are up particularly from the dehumidifiers, leaving a lot of our systems on when we would normally cut those off as cost savings over the years," Ellington-Graves said.
There are a few specific positions on the possible chopping block, some assistant principals, school nurses and office support staff. The district says it needed some of these positions in the past but now that they're facing a budget crisis, those positions could be cut.
"They are our VIPs, so, they mean a lot to to the board, lots to administration and obviously a lot to our students so that is our absolute last resort," Ellington-Graves said.
It's not clear what comes next. The board is set to meet again on Monday, February 26 at 6:00 p.m.
Talks regarding next year’s budget are also underway.
The Board of Education will approve the funding request on March 25 before submitting it to the County Manager on March 26. The Commissioners will hold a budget hearing on June 3 with plans to approve the final budget by June 17.