Little Rock-area schools slashing expenses

Desegregation state aid to end

Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore
Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore

Three of Pulaski County's public school districts are in the midst of finding ways to cut millions of dollars in expenses in the coming 2017-18 school year to offset the scheduled end of $65.8 million a year in special state desegregation money.

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Jerry Guess

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Rick McFarland

Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key

On Thursday, Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore will forward to Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key for approval recommendations to close three campuses and re-purpose another as part of a package of cuts totaling $11.8 million.

The Little Rock district, the largest of the districts, has been the recipient of $37.3 million a year in state desegregation aid that will end after the 2017-18 school year. The $11.8 million in new cuts for next year, in combination with cuts made this year and in previous years, will help the district absorb the reduction in state aid.

Poore said Friday that his school closing recommendations to the commissioner aren't going to change despite pleas from parents, school neighbors and community activists at two public forums to preserve the schools.

The schools are Franklin Elementary, Woodruff Early Childhood Education Center, and Hamilton Learning Academy, which houses an alternative education program for middle and high school students who aren't successful at their regular schools. That alternative program will be moved to what is now Wilson Elementary, which will no longer serve elementary pupils.

Key serves in place of the school board in the Little Rock district that will mark this week its second anniversary of operating under state control without a locally elected school board. The state took over the district when it had six of its 48 schools labeled as academically distressed because of chronically low achievement on state tests.

"I don't foresee any change in the recommendations," Poore said about shuttering schools, adding that he was not surprised by the passion shown by neighborhoods for their schools at the forums at Franklin and Wilson schools last week. "The thing we best do in education is create environments where kids, staff and parents end up loving their schools. That's what we do well."

The North Little Rock School Board, which receives $7.6 million a year in the special aid, voted late last week to reduce that district's contribution to their employees' health insurance benefits as one element of a budget-cutting package in the works for the coming school year.

And Jerry Guess, superintendent of the Pulaski County Special district, told his newly elected school board last week that he will present in February strategies to absorb the loss of desegregation aid. Those strategies are likely to reduce the number of instructional aides and bus routes in the district, he said. Additional plans call for reallocating some of the operating budget expenses to other, more restrictive funding sources.

The end to the desegregation aid is the result of a settlement agreement approved three years ago this month by U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. in what is now a 34-year-old Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit.

The settlement between the three districts, the state of Arkansas and the black students known as the Joshua intervenors, called for the special aid -- which has been paid to the districts for nearly three decades -- to continue for four years starting in 2014-15 and ending after the 2017-18 school year.

The special aid has generally been used by the districts for academic programs and extra staffing at magnet schools and specialty schools; school bus transportation to those schools; extracurricular activities transportation; and to supplement employee health insurance and retirement benefits. The 2014 settlement specifies that one year of the final four years of funding must be used in each of the three districts for building costs.

Each of the districts either has had large scale building projects or is in the midst of such. The North Little Rock district replaced 19 of its schools with 13 campuses -- nearly all of which are new or extensively remodeled.

Pulaski County Special is in the midst of building a replacement for Mills High and Robinson Middle, and is making arrangements to expand Sylvan Hills High.

The Little Rock district is converting a west Little Rock warehouse into the Pinnacle View Middle School and planning the construction of a new high school in southwest Little Rock to replace McClellan and J.A. Fair high schools.

Poore said Friday that the purpose of the community forums at Wilson and Franklin was to answer and address the questions that people had about the plans.

"Some of the questions were about the future. Some were about how we made decisions," he said. "The forums were also about receiving statements that will now be packaged to present to the commissioner -- just like you would present to a board of education. Those pieces will go to the commissioner for him to review and listen and look at."

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The Save Our Schools grassroots organization has been pushing against the Little Rock school closures on multiple fronts.

Anika Whitfield and other leaders of the group last week petitioned Key, the commissioner, to meet with the organization about the Little Rock district. Key declined, saying the law that allows for such petitioned meetings doesn't apply to the commissioner.

The organization called on the district to use its newly organized Bright Futures initiative to solicit contributions from large donors as a way to preserve the targeted schools.

Bright Futures is meant to be a way in which a school can call out to the community through Facebook for help in meeting an individual student need that is an obstacle to the student's academic success.

Poore said Friday that Bright Futures USA and the district's Bright Futures community partners said that soliciting of large-scale donations was outside the organization's mission.

In addition to closing and re-purposing schools, the district anticipates streamlining middle and high school staffing to save $3 million and reducing school bus transportation costs by abut $2.5 million

North Little Rock

The North Little Rock School Board last week approved the reduction of the district's share of health insurance premiums by $25 for all of its employees.

That's one piece of the district's efforts to cut expenses, which could also include cutting employee work days and eliminating the International Baccalaureate program at the high school.

The district currently pays $264.78 per month for health insurance, which is more than the state-mandated $155.93.

The district's Licensed Personnel Policy Committee, which includes teachers, chose the $25 a month reduction as opposed to larger amounts. The committee wants benefits to be re-evaluated in May to make sure that a larger cut will not be necessary later.

The Classified Personnel Policy Committee -- made up of employees who don't require teaching certificates -- had decided on a $35 reduction in the district's health insurance premium portion.

"Well, the reason that we chose the $35 option: We understand that there was going to be, that the district needed the cuts," said Donald Williams of the classified-personnel committee. "And also that those same people that chose the $35 option, they are the ones with their jobs that are on the line. ... And, so, if we can do something to help in savings and also to have those jobs -- that's the option that we want to roll with."

The North Little Rock School Board has agreed to review potential outsourcing of certain jobs, such as custodial or information technology, but it has not yet determined if there is a cost-benefit, board President Darrell Montgomery said, adding that the budget is ever-changing.

The new health insurance premium changes will take effect July 1.

Along with those changes, the district will no longer offer Aetna life insurance coverage -- other providers are still available -- nor will it shoulder the costs for short- and long-term disability. All disability coverage will be paid for by the employee.

In total, the benefits changes will save the district an estimated $392,565.60 annually.

Pulaski County Special School District

Guess, the superintendent of the Pulaski County district, said last week that his district's licensed and support staff committees will also be meeting with consultants to review employee benefits and costs for potential savings.

Other strategies include raising the cost of school meals so that the district will not have to subsidize those food costs out of its operating budget, Guess said.

"We still believe we can trim at least 20 bus routes," he said."A lot of that has to do with the elimination of magnet and interdistrict transportation between us and other schools in Little Rock and North Little Rock. It also has to do with intradistrict transportation of students. We are still working to identify about $1 million."

He also anticipates reconfiguring the district's alternative education instructional program to move some $600,000 in salaries out of the district's operating fund to be paid for instead with state funding that is specifically for alternative education.

"That operating expense will be reduced," he said.

Instructional facilitators will be distributed more equitably among elementary schools so that schools over 300 students will have two facilitators and smaller schools will have one each. At the secondary level, there would be two facilitators per each four areas or feeder patterns in the district. That would be down from four facilitators per feeder pattern.

The district is also exploring the possibility of seeking greater amounts of federal Title I funds for Fuller Middle and Mills High schools, again saving operating fund costs now going to those schools.

"We are rapidly getting nearer to be able to present to you in February a plan to reduce our obligations so that we are able to manage the loss of desegregation money," Guess said. "I can simply assure you that we are going to do that as effectively as possible and in a way that will affect employees in the least way possible."

A Section on 01/23/2017

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