Despite a nearly $8 million reduction in funding, Knox County Schools (KCS) has announced it will not have to lay off nearly 20 teachers who were previously slated for removal.¶
KCS will instead move all 17 teachers originally affected by recent district budget cuts to other positions within the district rather than eliminate their positions.¶
What Led to This
KCS was notified a few weeks ago that its budget had been cut when the Knox County Commission decided to reallocate $4 million in district funding to give county employees a 6 percent raise.¶
Additionally, a recalculation of the district’s fiscal capacity, which measures its ability to raise funds for education, showed an increase while enrollment decreased. These changes combined to lower the amount of money the district is eligible to receive from the state.¶
That led to KCS Superintendent Jon Rysewyk announcing that 29 full-time positions, including new employees hired last spring, would be cut at middle and high schools on top of nearly 100 layoffs that also occurred last spring. Other measures included reducing elementary school assistant principals’ contract days, a mandatory five-day furlough for district office and administrative employees, and halting replacements for student and staff devices, such as Chromebooks.¶
These cuts were intended to keep the district’s promise to the remaining employees of a 2- to 2.5-percent pay increase, which would align the district with a new state law requiring a $50,000 minimum salary for teachers.¶
How KCS Reduced the Budget
To avoid laying off more teachers, the district will likely use an unexpected boon in sales tax revenues and unused summer learning dollars to cover some of the difference. The board also decided to stick with its original plan to furlough all staff on 255- and 260-day contracts for 5 days and to reduce elementary school assistant principals’ contract days from 221 to 216, though these changes are not set in stone and still need to be finalized at a future meeting.¶
Rysewyk emphasized during the board’s June 6 work session that, while he was proud to have saved some teachers from being laid off, he did not view this as a victory.¶
“We did hang out a lot of late nights working on trying to come up with a play to minimize the impact of this, and let me say this: even with that, there's no victory lap here?” Rysewyk said. “This is not what we wanted to do.”¶
During the board’s July 9 meeting, Steven Triplett made a public plea for the county commission to rescind its 6 percent pay raise, which he noted would also repeal a previously approved 6 percent pay raise for the school board members, saying he didn’t feel it was right for politicians in the district to get a raise while teachers lost their jobs, though no official vote was held on it.¶
Fellow board member Betsy Henderson expressed her support for the action and criticized the county commission for cutting education spending while giving themselves raises.¶
“We've had a good working relationship with our county commission (since she joined the school board), but this lame duck commission's last-minute decision to cut education funding this year is a blow, I think, to that partnership,” Henderson said. “Cutting school funding to pay for 6 percent across-the-board county government salary increases is wrong. To make matters worse, voting to cut school funding while increasing your own salary, which is what all the Democrats and many of the Republicans did, is beyond the pale. It should be corrected immediately… This is politics at its worst, not serious policy, and our students, teachers, families, and taxpayers deserve better.”¶
Though much of the potential damage has been avoided for now, the board still has to decide whether to approve an early-retiree financial incentive in August. The deadline to file for it would be November 9, with a last-chance date of December 18 to rescind.¶
