The Herricks School District will cut three to five positions from its facilities department staff in the 2012-13 budget based on acceptance of early retirement incentives, Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth said last week.
Those positions are in addition to four positions already planned for elimination in next year’s budget by attrition or layoffs.
Bierwirth said at last Thursday night’s school board meeting he expected to present the exact number of facilities department positions that will be eliminated at next week’s school board meeting.
“Our objective, by the 15th, will be to have hard numbers. We do not have all those pieces together,” Bierwirth said.
Elimination of the four positions already planned to be cut represents a savings of $280,000 in next year’s budget, school officials said.
Bierwirth said reducing staffing and operations through attrition rather than through layoff is strongly preferred “on a human and financial level.”
The district would incur $20,000 in unemployment costs for each person it would lay off, he said.
Jim Brown, director of facilities for the Herricks School District, said the department is already operating with a “bare bones staff” for the 100 acres of grounds it covers.
“We’re probably at the lowest level we’ve ever been,” Brown said. “We had to develop a plan in such a way so the staff could handle it. We didn’t want to risk compromising our facilities.”
Brown plans to maintain two-man night shifts of a custodian and cleaner in each of the elementary school buildings. He said he’s also considering a “floater” position, with that person assisting the night staffs in each school one night weekly and covering for people taking vacation days or sick time.
The facilities staff at the middle school will be reduced by one position and Brown said the staffs at both the middle school and high school would cover the additional work created by positions to be left open. He said all elementary schools would be closed at 6 p.m., unless evening events are scheduled.
To reduce the facilities staff’s responsibilities, students will be asked to put their chairs on their desks at the end of each school day and garbage bags will be placed outside of each classroom.
“We’re looking to get some help from the teachers and kids,” Brown said. “We feel that this will enable us to keep the buildings clean now.”
Brown said custodians were each cleaning more classrooms and not taking overtime for the additional work.
Bierwirth said the district is seeking to accelerate the reduction in the facilities staff projected in 2013. There were 63 employees working on the facilities staff during the 2009-10 school year. At the start of the 2012-13 school year, the district projects 51 people to be employed in the department.
Bierwirth said adjustments, including event scheduling changes, are an essential part of district plans to conserve resources. He noted that the recent Martin Luther King Day Wrestling Tournament, normally held on the holiday observing King’s birthday, was held on the Saturday preceding the holiday to save custodial staff costs tied to the event.
“I’m sure it won’t be perfect. But if we can do this and get the kinks worked out, we’ll be making progress,” Bierwirth said.
In response to a question about a problem of mice infesting the Denton Avenue School, Brown said the facilities staff had recently set out 100 traps over a weekend, but trapped only two mice. He said the weekend trapping program would carry on.
“We’re going to continue this program on the weekends and we hope to get rid of all of them,” Brown said.
Brown also reported that a new fire alarm system will be installed in the high school during the February break.
“We can’t get parts for this system, it’s so old,” Brown said.
On other budget matters, Helen Costigan, Herricks assistant superintendent for business, said the district is projecting $8,009,214 in state education aid, a $200,000 increase over what the district received last year. The district also will receive $148,500 in state aid for the district’s universal pre-K program.
Bierwirth provided a cost breakdown for the cuts in the proposed $101.27 million 2012-13 budget at the last board meeting:
• Four elementary teaching positions to be cut due to reduced enrollment – $436,000
• Two grade six classroom positions (also due to lower enrollment) – $218,000
• 3.5 positions in grades seven to eight due to eliminating grade eight intramural teams – $382,000
• 4.4 position in the high school – $480,000
• Cutting five teaching assistant positions – $200,000
• 10 percent reductions in budgets for clubs K-12 – $47,000
• Reduction in interscholastic budget by cutting trainer and dropping elementary and secondary intramurals – $75,000
• Elimination of Herricks participation in the Tri-State Consortium – $15,000
