GRPS approves staff, spending cuts

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - After one board member unsuccessfully attempted to delay the decision by two weeks, the Grand Rapids school board approved 8-1 a 2009-10 budget Monday night that cuts teaching, administrative and clerical positions along with general spending in all departments.

It also uses $6.8 million in savings and includes changes to alternative education. The cuts are designed to fill the rest of the district's $15 million budget gap.

The board signed off on the budget proposal presented by the administration and reported by 24 Hour News 8 in May.

Roughly 90 teaching positions would be cut by not replacing retired teachers, moving some to part-time both voluntarily and involuntarily and layoffs. Administrators did not have an exact number of layoffs Monday. The district would lose 13.5 administrative and clerical positions and cut 10 percent of budgets at the central office and within school buildings.

The plan also includes closing administrative buildings on Fridays in the summer along with the week during the district's winter break.

The budget restructures alternative education, a change administrators say is needed because alternative programs are graduating just 33 percent of their students, compared to 75 percent at the district's other high schools. Administrators say the changes are based on studying successful programs.

Most alternative education programs would become centers within the high schools. Students might take some courses within the regular school and others inside the center. Each alternative education teacher would oversee about 60 students, split into two 30-student computer lab sections. Each section would have a paraprofessional, a youth advocate, and four college tutors.

Teachers union president Paul Helder criticized the changes, saying students and teachers would be hurt by the plan. He said the only qualified teacher among the 60 students would be forced to serve as an administrator and would not be able to give alternative education students the one-on-one attention they need.

A district library media specialist called on the board to reconsider the cuts that included her own position, saying cutting those specialists would hurt students' understanding of technology.

Board member Tony Baker, the lone no-vote on the budget, moved that the decision be tabled because he was not yet comfortable voting for some of the program changes in the budget, including alternative education. But there was no "second" for the motion and outgoing board member David Allen, pointing out that the budget had been discussed numerous times publicly and privately, then moved to adopt the budget.

Speaking before the board vote, Helder also criticized the district's spending. Using state statistics, he noted that the district ranks high within Kent County for total dollars coming in per student but is in the bottom half when it comes to teacher compensation.

In an interview with 24 Hour News 8, district chief financial officer Lisa Freiburger noted that the state figures Helder cited included federal grant funds for disadvantaged students -- money that can't be used in the general fund budget to pay staff.

Freiburger noted that, out of the 773 districts in Michigan, a state report shows Grand Rapids pays its teachers the 166th highest average salary. For business and administrative expenses, the district is 360th out of those same 773 school systems.

Helder also criticized the district for not factoring in direct federal stimulus dollars in the budget. The approved budget does include the use of indirect stimulus funds, in the form of the state not cutting the per-student funding allowance for 2009-10.

Freiburger said the direct stimulus dollars -- roughly $18 million for special education and "disadvantaged" students -- are not factored into the budget as passed either on the incoming or outgoing side because the details of the funds are not yet completely finalized.

And even if she incorporated those direct stimulus dollars in the budget, the chief financial officer said they could not be used to offset the other spending cuts because those dollars by law cannot be used in the general fund.

Freiburger said administrators would present a budget amendment to the board to include those funds once the federal government finalizes the details.