BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Union County Superintendent Mike Ripplinger and school board members continued discussing possible budget cuts during a December 9 workshop, focusing on a hiring freeze the district has already implemented as well as reducing summer school and summer hours for district staff, cutting a cell phone reimbursement and contract completion supplement, closing the district’s preschool or turning it over to a private operator, and reducing other employee benefits.
Hiring freeze
Ripplinger told board members that the district had implemented hiring freezes several times in the past, and whenever it was executed, the hiring freeze had the desired effect.
“I’ll remind the board and everyone in attendance if there is a mission-critical position, we are definitely filling those,” Ripplinger said, adding that some job tasks may be moved to other positions or shared with other employees.
“Some positions are being filled as fast as possible,” he said. “Others, we’re kind of holding off.”
The superintendent said the hiring freeze will save the district around $150,000 this year.
Summer school and hours
Ripplinger said the board would decide on summer school and summer hours for district employees in the Spring when the board usually allocates positions for summer school. The superintendent added that he planned on offering only state-required classes for summer school and that the changes to summer school and summer hours should save the district around $100,000 in the current year.
Ripplinger also said that changing state standards for credit recovery has increased the time it takes for students to make up lost credits.
He added that the new standards and the new platform the district is using for credit recovery make completing the work on campus in a three-week session difficult. He said students working with Florida Virtual School throughout the entire summer is a better solution.
“So, instead of being pigeonholed for three weeks during this particular time of the summer, they actually would have all summer long to work on a Florida Virtual class no matter where they are,” he said. “So, if they failed a course, they could retake that during the summer just like they would during summer school but have a lot more flexibility and abilities to do that.”
Cell phone reimbursement
Board members consented to put a vote to end the district’s cell phone reimbursement on the agenda for the next board meeting. Ripplinger said cutting the reimbursement would save $10,000 for the remainder of the current year and $20,000 a year after that.
Contract completion supplement
The district is in its third year providing a contract completion supplement to relieve payroll compression due to the required minimum wage and beginning teacher salary increases. The supplement costs the district around $173,000 a year.
Tiger’s Den
Ripplinger emphasized that if the board chose to close the district’s preschool, which is losing $10,000 a month, parents and staff would have ample time to prepare for the closure.
“Please listen to what I’m saying,” the superintendent implored. “If the decision is made to close Tiger’s Den, nothing is going to change in the immediate future of Tiger’s Den. There is no way in the world that we can vote on this, let’s say on December 17, and if the vote is to close Tiger’s Den, we are not going to turn off the lights when we go home on December 20…The operations of Tiger’s Den will have to continue to run through January, through February through March, quite possibly. It may run for the rest of the year for the rest of the fiscal year.”
The superintendent then repeated his earlier statements that he would prefer a private operator take over the preschool rather than the building going dark.
He also said that if the district did close the daycare, administrators would try to find other jobs within the district for displaced employees.
“We’re not trying to cut people,” he said. “We’re trying to do things to provide the services to our students and our staff and still try to maintain as many people as possible, preferably everyone.”
Other employee benefits
The board also discussed other employee benefits, including a district-paid Union Direct Primary Care membership, life insurance, and long-term disability insurance.
“These benefits…are not going anywhere.,” said the superintendent. “The question is: Who absorbs the cost for that? UDPC has been a marvelous service since we entered into an agreement with them, and they do great service. We have no problem with UDPC or anything such as that. But when you’re looking at that, the question is: Who absorbs the cost of that benefit?”
