School nurses, librarians eyed for possible reductions

WASILLA — Mat-Su Borough School District nurses and librarians are expected to show up at Wednesday night’s school board meeting to express opposition over possible cuts of their positions to balance the district’s budget.

Since the superintendent’s office instructed all school principals to tell staff not to contact school board members with concerns and complaints — but rather follow the “chain of command” — frustrated employees likely will take advantage of the board’s public comment period to sound off, Assistant Superintendent Ken Forrest said Monday.

“The school board is not in the staffs’ chain of command,” said Forrest, a retired Army colonel. “They have every right to contact anyone they want, but we don’t believe it’s the most effective method. The school board is not sitting down and determining the needs of the schools. The administration is doing that with each principal. The last time I checked, teachers work in the buildings for the principals.”

The recent threat of possibly reducing nurses, librarians, physical education staff, music staff and others in “special” classes came after the final numbers of employees taking early retirement incentives was analyzed last week upon the Feb. 18 plan withdrawal deadline.

Although 95 staff members have taken the district up on its offer of early retirement, the savings is not enough to close the gap on the $8.9 million structural deficit, leaving the district to find other ways to cut expenses.

If all 145 employees who had initially signed up for the district’s Supplemental Employee Retirement Plan had stuck with it, it would have been enough to avoid forced staff reductions — even in the worst-case budget scenario, Forrest said in January.

Although the 95 early retirees is 65 more than what the district usually gets each year, it leaves the district with some tough choices, Forrest said Monday.

“We did meet with the nurses and indicate to them that we do have less funding overall and that it was my position that if we’re going to reduce them, wouldn’t it be more appropriate that the reduction recommendations come from the nurses themselves? They’re the experts, after all,” Forrest said. “Each site has its own unique needs, so that’s why we’re having all the principals meet with the staff in their own buildings to figure this out. It’s impossible for those in the central office to make the determination of what it needs to look like.”

Wednesday’s school board meeting at 6 p.m. in the Palmer High School Upper Library will feature a public hearing on the fiscal year 2012 budget. This comes after the district already held a few public budget meetings and surveyed those in the community.

The district will submit its final budget to the school board for adoption at its March 22 meeting, Forrest said.

Board member Sarah Welton said she’s expecting Wednesday night’s meeting to be “horrendous” in terms of public outcry.

She said the fact that the superintendent’s office instructed all school principals to tell their staffs not to contact board members only feeds the fire.

“We represent everyone in the community, including teachers and other school district employees,” Welton said. “It’s against district policy to discourage anyone from contacting the board.”

Matanuska-Susitna Education Association President Jill Showman said she whole-heartedly agrees with Welton and expects “many” staff members will voice their concerns to the board during Wednesday’s meeting.

“I would hope that our employees, parents, business owners and everyone else in the community would be able to contact their politicians and school board members because, as Welton said, they as a body represent us, the community,” Showman said. “There is a lot of concern out there right now about how this budget will be balanced.”

Showman is especially passionate about the possibility of losing school librarians. She recently returned from burying her mother, an elementary librarian for 35 years.

“I can’t even begin to say how valuable librarians are to classroom teachers,” Showman said. “If the district starts requiring the teachers to manage the libraries, too, they’re not only putting an additional strain on the teachers, but there’s no way you can guarantee the teachers will be able to do everything now being done by the librarians, from ordering books and cataloguing to making sure everything gets back into its proper place and helping with technology needs. Our librarians are especially trained and certified in what they do, just as teachers are certified for their subjects. You can’t replace that.“

Although Showman said she was “cautiously optimistic” the district will solve its funding woes without cutting essential staff, Forrest wasn’t so sure the district would get much support from the state Legislature.

“Funding this year appears to be different,” Forrest said. “They’ve been pretty conservative in Juneau. I haven’t heard of people down there jumping on the bandwagon to improve school funding. As a bean counter myself, I have a lot of empathy for what the people have to do in Juneau. I applaud them for being fiscally conservative.”

Forrest, however, hopes district staff and community members will be patient and allow the process to unfold before getting too up in arms over cuts that, in the end, might not actually happen.

“I absolutely applaud and appreciate those people who are passionate about their areas, but I would caution everyone that no one wants to reduce services for our children,” he said. “We have not heard yet from the state or the borough. All of our budget assumptions are (a) worst-case scenario. Let’s just allow this to unfold before we jump to conclusions.”

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.