Eighteen teachers may lose their jobs as the Vincennes Community School Corp. looks for ways to close a projected $1.2-million budget deficit.
The school board Monday unanimously approved a cost reduction plan proposed by superintendent Tom Nonte that will eliminate 18 positions from the corporation at the end of this school year.
Nonte said the plan would cut approximately $800,000. Neither he nor assistant superintendent Greg Parsley wanted to elaborate on what positions would be eliminated until the staff members themselves had been notified.
Parsley said they would be told today.
“We’ll begin a process (Tuesday) with our building principals having conversations with their employees,” Parsley said. “We felt that was the more personal and appropriate manner to go, and that’ll begin tomorrow morning.”
Parsley said the Vincennes Education Association and the corporation’s principals were involved in the RIF discussion.
“We’ve gone over the list,” he said. “We have double checked it, we triple checked it and everything of that nature. We feel like we made the decision as judicially as we could make it.”
As a result of the cuts, the class sizes at each of the corporation’s schools will increase, but Nonte said all of the grade levels will have class sizes that are either lower or comparable to the other county and nearby school corporations.
March has become a month of madness for the school board, as last year the board voted to eliminate 10 teaching positions, two administrative positions, 13 support staff positions and some extracurricular positions, in addition to closing Washington Elementary School.
Following a retirement incentive package that was offered to teachers, many of the staff members were able to return to their positions.
But the corporation will again go through the same process this year.
“Every time you start to feel like that you’re getting ahead you seem to have something else coming in another direction and unfortunately it never seems to be good news, ranging from a new funding formula to the restoration grant to the (property) tax caps,” Parsley said.
Nonte explained to the large audience of mostly teachers at Monday’s meeting the many reasons why the VCSC has experienced financial hardships in the last couple of years pointing to the general recession, the corporation’s declining enrollment and the decision by state legislators to use the state sales tax instead of property taxes to supply the general fund of public schools.
“This has been a disaster for the general fund,” he said. “The sales tax has fallen way short of providing the amount of money for this corporation to continue on.”
While other school corporations in the state have cut programs such as music, art and physical education, board member Aaron Bauer reiterated that none of the VCSC’s programing or curriculum has been cut.
“If anything, the overspending that has been referred to in the last three years isn’t being spent on cars and buses and frivolous expenditures,” he said. “It’s being spent on kids for programs such as Alice Academy and many initiatives that have been started at Lincoln High School that we have since spread to the rest of the corporation.”
After the announcement of the reduction in force, the corporation will still need to cut another $400,000.
Parsley said officials are looking at a variety of other cost-cutting measures to make up that difference, including the possibility of joining the state health insurance plan and outsourcing the custodial, maintenance and grounds operations. They also plan to negotiate with the VEA to provide another potential retirement incentive package.
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