- Facing a multi-million dollar budget shortfall, Monroe County Community School Corp. (MCCSC) is considering staff reductions, including potential layoffs.
- The shortfall is attributed to declining student enrollment and the impact of Indiana Senate Bill 1, which will reduce property tax revenue for the district.
- MCCSC Superintendent Markay Winston stated payroll cuts are necessary as it constitutes 85% of operational expenses.
This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.
Six months ago, the Monroe County Community School Corp. board was considering building a new $55-million facility and weighing annexes for a now-shelved school merger plan. Now, MCCSC’s superintendent and board members are facing a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall and warning the district will need to reduce staff – with layoffs potentially on the table.
Two big changes happened in those six months. First, in November, a demographics consultant urged MCCSC to close “two or three” schools as the district's enrollment and Monroe County's school-aged population continue to decline each year.
Then, in April, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 1, a massive tax relief bill expected to cost MCCSC $17 million in lost property tax revenue over the next three years. The bill also mandates public schools share referendum dollars with local charter schools.
MCCSC adopted a plan of “natural attrition” in February stating it would carefully assess whether to backfill the positions of people who resign or retire this spring. But at the April school board meeting, just one week after SB 1 was signed into law, Superintendent Markay Winston spoke about staff reductions in a more definitive tone.
“Because payroll accounts for approximately 85% of all our operational expenses, these changes from the state will require us to make staffing reductions,” Winston said at the April 22 meeting.
Property taxes support MCCSC's operations fund, which pays for transportation improvements, capital projects and generic “overhead and operational activities.” But, board president April Hennessey said, absorbing the funding decreases on top of the existing enrollment decline means budgets across the board likely will be affected.
“If you think about the dollars that we were already trying to recoup, plus those dollars [from SB 1], it’s tens of millions of dollars,” Hennessey said. “We're likely going to have to look at shifting staff, transferring, potentially other strategies – we’re looking for every dollar in every place that we can find.”
Teachers' union urges board to adopt staff reduction policy
Jenny Noble-Kuchera, president of the teacher’s union Monroe County Education Association (MCEA), is urging the school board to preemptively adopt a reduction in workforce policy ahead of staff cuts. At the April meeting, Noble-Kuchera said the MCEA had collected more than 500 signatures in support of crafting a reduction in workforce policy involving the union and school board.
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“[SB 1] leaves us all in a terrible position,” Noble-Kuchera said. “As our employers, you may need to lose employees through more than natural retirements and resignations.”
Noble-Kuchera urged the board to establish a written reduction in workforce policy in collaboration with the MCEA.
Winston said she’d already had conversations with MCEA and the local staff union, AFSCME, about reducing staff in April. She did not say if or under what circumstances MCCSC might terminate employees to reduce staffing on top of the “natural attrition” plan. She also said her team was looking at how to trim costs in centralized services, programs and staffing.
“MCCSC is committed to protecting classroom instruction and student services,” Winston said. “Every effort will be made to protect the direct support students receive in their schools.”
Winston and MCCSC communications director Sarah DeWeese did not respond to questions about if or how the passage of SB 1 had impacted MCCSC’s staff reduction plan.Since Winston first announced the “natural attrition” plan in February, 23 teachers and 33 staff members have either resigned or retired from MCCSC.
Reach Brian Rosenzweig atbrian@heraldt.com. Follow him on X/Twitter at@brianwritesnews.
