COMING TO A BISD NEAR YOU: LAYOFFS, PAYOFFS?

By Juan Montoya
When I was working for the San Antonio Light, the city hall reporter was Deborah Weser.
Deborah (non one dared call her Debby), could take a San Antonio city budget and get to the nuts and bolts at once. I once had to cover her back when she had a deadline story and found myself hopelessly mired in the numbers (fudged and otherwise) and had to recur to her while she typed out her story. Without as much as a backward glance up from her typewriter, she called out the page number on the massive tome. Sure enough, there it was at the exact page she had pulled from her head.
I remember Ms. Weser as I thumb through the proposed budget submitted Wednesday by the Brownsville Independent School District administration headed by Superintendent Carl Montoya and Human Resources administrator Tony Juarez and presented to the new budget committee headed by trustee Hector Chirinos and formed by Otis Powers and Dr. Christina Saavedra. Chirinos replaced Catalina Presas-Garcia after board president Enrique Escobedo gained the exclusive right to appoint committee chairs and members when the majority voted to give it to him.
Whatever you may think of Catalina, for the two years that she was chairman of the budget committee and the district had  to do with millions less from the state, no teachers were laid off, no support staff were fired, and property taxes stayed the same.
But now the committee has the administration's proposed 2012-2013 budget and there are a few eye-opening surprises that may make them wonder if they really want to follow the proposals in personnel and budget allocations recommended by Montoya and Juarez. Using the Texas Association of School Boards Recommendations on personnel allocations as their model, the two gents have made the following recommendations:

LAYOFFS:
Elementary clerical staff: -6                                        Reduction: $127,600
Secondary Campuses clerical staff: -33                      Reduction: $701,811
District-wide Instructional Aides: -234                        Reduction: $$4,623,372

ELEMENTARY CAMPUSES
Elementary PE Teachers: -37                                      Reduction: $$1,994,485
PE Aides: +37                                                            Increase: $785,991
PK-5
Teachers (increase class size, 19.9 to 20.1) -16           Reduction: $858,800
GRADES 6-8
Teachers (increase class size 22.1 to 24.0 -47              Reduction: $2,522,800
GRADES 9-12
Teachers (increase class size 22.1 to 24.0) -58             Reduction: $3,113,200
TOTAL CAMPUS BUDGET REDUCTION
Personnel (-431)  ( not including 37 PE aides)             Reduction: $13,156,077

NON-CAMPUS POSITIONS/OPERATIONS/FACILITIES
Clerical positions (Secretaries, clerks, specialists) -166  Reduction: $3,223,640
Maintenance vacancies (do not fill) 83                           Reduction: $2,279,300
Custodians (increase from 18,554 ft. to 19,000 sq. ft.) -6 Reduction: $154,400
Student nutrition staffing: -148                                           Reduction: $414,800
TOTAL NON-CAMPUS:
Personnel: -270 (not including 83 maintenance not filled)  Reductions: $6,072,140

Additional Cuts:
Librarians: -32                                                                   Reductions: $1,999,392
Library Clerks: No change
Registered Nurse: -46                                                        Reductions: $2,400,464
LVNs: + 58
ADDITIONAL CUTS:
Personnel: -78 (not including 58 LVNs)                            Reductions: $2,690,779

ESTIMATED TOTAL BUDGET REDUCTION:
Personnel: -779                                                                  Reduction: $21,918,987  


AND THE WINNER IS...MARTIN ARAMBULA!
So there you have it children. If the BISD administration's budget is followed by the budget committee, we will have an additional 779 people on the unemployment lines including teachers, coaches, secretaries, aides, janitors, and nurses.
But wait! There's more. In the administration's proposed budget there is an item dealing with compensation where BISD honchos recommend that Policy/Record Manager Martin Arambula should get a $18,920 raise for overseeing half a handful of staff members which will increase his salary from $73,902 to $92,000 in one fell swoop.
This will mean that Arambula, who will announce his candidacy for Cameron County Judge on April 18 in front of the court house will be earning more than most principals who oversee 200+ teachers and 2,000 or more students day in and day out.
To many in the district, even if his recycling/waste reduction efforts were to pay off eventually and save the district money, the priorities demonstrated by the BISD administration and those board members who follow the recommendations will be sorely misplaced and smacks of political pandering.
"How can you justify hiking the compensation for that position when Arambula may be gone campaigning?" asked a BISD administrator. "What kind of message does that send out to your principals and teachers, never mind the 780 people who are going to lose their jobs? Does that mean that whoever takes over that position will come in at that pay level, or is there some political debt being paid here?"