San Antonio is paying for its largest teacher and staff raises in 25 years by eliminating scores of jobs, many of which were already vacant. Other cuts will likely come from a reduction in campuses and other facilities. Via SAReport
Dozens of teachers, cafeteria workers and librarians call for pay raises during a San Antonio Independent School District board meeting in March., The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
Central Office budget reductions equaled $16 million in 2022-23, and an additional $6.5 million will be made in 2023-24, according to the district. The Central Office includes administrators and support staff above the campus level, such as human resources, academic support and assistant superintendents overseeing various departments.
Toni Thompson, the chief of staff for the district, told the Report that the reductions overall have not had an impact on the operations of the district. An additional 15 driver positions are being cut next year, in part by adjusting the bell schedule to allow drivers to cover routes for both middle and high school.
Thompson said each department had the ability to make decisions about the cuts within its ranks, with the goal of cutting 10% to 15% across the board. “We knew that we needed to determine pretty quickly what we needed to do to address the deficit,” Thompson said. “And that’s how we ended up determining that we were going to make some pretty huge cuts at the Central Office level … and the interest now has been to protect the classroom as much as we can.”
Another $1.2 million in cuts, making up 2% of the overall budget, are being made to campus allocations, which pay for librarians, counselors, assistant principals and other non-classroom staff. Board president Christina Martinez said those decisions were left to campus leaders. Positions eliminated as part of the campus level cuts include dozens of librarians, family engagement specialists and more. Those cuts are reverberating through the community. On the night raises were being considered, much of the public comment called for the board to intervene to save the jobs of beloved librarians.
The cuts come as school districts across Texas lobby for more funding from the state, which is considering a number of laws that could provide modest increases in school funding. The state has a budget surplus that advocates hope will be used to give the struggling sector a reprieve. “During 2022, the district utilized our ESSER grant funding to strategically reserve $27 million of general fund balance to be spent in years after ESSER expires to create a ‘soft landing’ post-covid,” San Antonio ISD spokesperson Laura Short said. “Our long-term sustainability plan calls for us building reserves during the three years that we have ESSER and utilizing the reserves in the three years post-ESSER.
Thompson stressed that any potential decisions “would be made after fully engaging all of the major stakeholders and taking things out to the community for discussion.”
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