Ypsilanti school board passes deficit elimination plan, calls for education funding reform

• To view the plan, click here.

The plan was passed unanimously, after many trustees voiced their displeasure at voting for a plan to cut an anticipated $26 million deficit over the next four years.

The plan includes eliminating five teaching positions, eliminating student monitor positions, contracting with private companies for custodial and food services, and district-wide concessions of about $9.8 million in salaries and benefits in 2013. Other measures in the plan include $420,000 in savings from custodial health care, eliminating student service coordinators and getting health care concessions from central office staff.

Board president David Bates said the plan will help the district avoid any punishment from the state during this school year, but he hopes to keep amending the document in coming years. He said it’s necessary for district officials to continue lobbying state legislators for more funding for public education.

“At some level, none of the cuts in this plan are fair in any way, shape, form or manner,” he said. “We need to redouble our efforts to convince legislators that we need help solving our problem.”

In earlier drafts of the plan, trustees considered cutting funding for transportation and athletics, repurposing the middle school and moving the seventh and eighth grades to Ypsilanti High School and instituting pay-to-participate for after-school activities.

The final draft of the plan is largely unchanged from the outcome of the Jan. 17 district operations committee meeting. The plan ends with a $1 fund balance by the fiscal year 2015, meaning the district is making the least amount of reductions possible to please the state, Houle said.

The elimination of student support coordinators was the subject of comments by parents Rex and Sally Richie, who spoke about their daughter allegedly being assaulted at school and the lack of follow up from district employees.

The couple spoke to the board about their concerns regarding what they said was a lack of discipline at Ypsilanti High School. Sally Richie said her daughter had been assaulted in November by a male student, but there has been no meeting between school officials, her daughter and the accused student since.

Student support coordinators are the school employees who usually handle discipline issues. Eliminating the positions will save the district about $1.3 million over the next four years, Houle said.

“There are cuts that have to be made, we all get it. But if you’re concerned with discipline issues, the last thing you should do is take away the people who are helping get those issues under control,” said Kelly Powers, president of the Ypsilanti Education Association.

The hardest-hitting measures of the plan likely won't come until 2013, when a number of salary and benefit concessions recently taken by the district's teachers end.

Larry Hankins, vice president of the Ypsilanti Support Staff Association, told trustees he thinks the district is attempting to balance the budget on the backs of the employees who make the least amount of money. He said support staff makes up roughly 40 percent of district employees and amounts to only 6 percent of the budget.

The plan includes a 12.5 percent cut in salaries for custodians.

Hankins said the union is ready to work with district officials, but wants everyone to sacrifice.

“You see where the money’s going, it’s not going to us,” he said. “Now we’re talking about going after the lowest paid people in the district. It’s not going to get us where we need to go.”

During his presentation at the meeting, Houle said long-term funding fixes would have to be a “legislative solution.”

“This is not working for many schools,” he said. “This system has not kept up with inflation and has not met the needs of students.”

In the document, Houle suggests a number of possible actions the state could take to find a solution.

Trustee Kira Berman

• “Current school funding legislation must be amended and modified to allow for local operating via a millage.”
• “A higher homestead millage for the 6 percent state education tax may be required to fund schools adequately.”
• “The Legislature should correct the unintended conflicts between the Headlee Amendment and Proposal A.”
• “The state should fund a state-wide pool for school employee health care to bring fairness and efficiency to the benefit.”

Trustee Kira Berman said some of the cuts to support staff — namely the 12.5 percent cut in compensation — were more than were being asked of other district employees. She said she hopes the district will find a solution to the cuts by the time 2013 arrives.

“I’m sorry I have to support this,” she said. “I do not like any of these cuts.”

Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com.