Pasco superintendent proposes $16M in cuts

The biggest loser in Pasco County's efforts to cut its budget for next year would be full compliance with the 2002 class-size reduction amendment. Superintendent Heather Fiorentino (left) has recommended not filling teaching positions aimed at getting every classroom to the limits set forth in the amendment, instead targeting school averages, as lawmakers allowed during the recent legislative session. That would save the district about $11-million.

But one key item that she didn't propose on paper is likely to loom large over the discussions to come. She did not include any mention of pay raises. Fiorentino told the Gradebook she intends to recommend that the board negotiate with the United School Employees of Pasco to have no annual raises based on years of service, a savings of more than $5-million, and no cost of living raises.

"To be able to preserve the jobs and the benefits, we will have to negotiate that," Fiorentino said. "We'd be able to maintain our people where we are today, which is better than most districts."

In a letter issued Friday, USEP president Lynne Webb praised the administration's efforts to find savings in the general operating budget, which was about $527-million this year after a mid-year $10-million reduction. But Webb questioned the $16-million cutting target, while also reminding Fiorentino that employees "have made it clear that they are expecting to be paid their step increases."

To see Fiorentino's proposed budget cuts, click here. To see her memo to the School Board, click here. To read the USEP's letter to the superintendent, click here. And be sure to check tomorrow's St. Petersburg Times or tampabay.com for our full story.

Comments

[Dr_Dug]

Great job! After years of record money coming in for schools..it appears they spent it all on crap! Where's the money? What a great lesson for the children to learn.

[taxpayer]

Ask them about the $1 million they wasted on the Max Thompson stuff that will not work in multi-age classrooms. The district bought a square peg and tried to FORCE it into a round hole. Now they want the teachers to pay for their mess.

[agree]

I totally agree with the taxpayer post. All around Pasco your children sat with subs for 4 days while their teachers had to go for "training." Not like our 4 years in college where we took education classes did not prepare us!

[Tony]

Has anyone taken into consideration that the amount of kids in Pasco schools has more than tripled the last few years with all the northerners moving down here? More and more schools are being built. More teachers need to be hired. More books need to be bought. More school buses are on the road. More activities need to be paid for. THAT'S where all the money goes. You wanted a tax CUT? Guess what, EDUCATION spending gets CUT too? Thanks to all those who voted for Amendment 1!!!! You're all selfish

[Heidi]

$1 million for Max Thompson's plagiarized LFS? Try $4 million! And it's stuff we already know and do. As for teachers getting their annual increases, those of you who want to shoot that down as not being "real world," hear this: In every other "real world" job, you can earn a raise or promotion for doing an outstanding job. NOT in teaching. As a teacher you asre expected to do the same job on Day 1 as on Day 1,000, 001. We rely on our annual increases just to keep us up with inflation. We are NOT in a competitive business market, and therefore we rely on our union to make sure we are always able to make ends meet.

[Heidi]

$1 million for Max Thompson's plagiarized LFS? Try $4 million! And it's stuff we already know and do. As for teachers getting their annual increases, those of you who want to shoot that down as not being "real world," hear this: In every other "real world" job, you can earn a raise or promotion for doing an outstanding job. NOT in teaching. As a teacher you are expected to do the same job on Day 1 as on Day 1,000,001. We rely on our annual increases just to keep us up with inflation. We are NOT in a competitive business market, and therefore we rely on our union to make sure we are always able to make ends meet.

[Heidi]

$1 million for Max Thompson's plagiarized LFS? Try $4 million! And it's stuff we already know and do. As for teachers getting their annual increases, those of you who want to shoot that down as not being "real world," hear this: In every other "real world" job, you can earn a raise or promotion for doing an outstanding job. NOT in teaching. As a teacher you are expected to do the same job on Day 1 as on Day 1,000,001. We rely on our annual increases just to keep us up with inflation. We are NOT in a competitive business market, and therefore we rely on our union to make sure we are always able to make ends meet.

[Dave]

You want our children to get a quality education, but you want to remove raises and increase the amount of teacher to children ratio?

How in heck to you expect to attract talented teachers? How do you expect children to compete in a growing world economy?

In Dallas, TX someone with a 4yr degree who wants to teach can enroll in a program that allows them to earn their teaching certificate while working as an 'intern'. That teacher with no prior experience makes 50k/year!! (Bilingual) if they aren't Bilingual, that can start around 45k, and it's MUCH cheaper to live in TX.

Florida education needs to wake up. You can't cut education. Education should be off limits. This is our future. You want your Social Security, Governments, Police, Politics, etc run by morons? That's what Florida is breeding with its education system, pure morons. 'Good enough' doesn't cut it. You cut the salary, and you are going to get the bottom of the barrel.

As for all the LFS haters, I am an teacher and I can tell you that I found it to be very helpful. It is sad that the most vocal people are the negative teachers who have been doing the same thing for the past 20 years and are resistant to change-even when it is good for kids. You give our profession a bad name. By the way, it is my understanding that 90% of the money spent on LFS were federal training dollars that had to be used for LFS or a similar research-based training dollars. You make yourselves sound petty and ignorant when you speak of what you do not know. I am sad we aren't going to get raises, but my anger is directed at our Legislature and Community for not supporting full-funding of education. Our children deserve more.

[Doctor Paul]

I wonder what the taxpayers were thinking when they approved property tax cuts? Did they ever consider the long term effect? Not just in education but in all the services that we have come to expect and now are just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg. Someone forgot to remind them that the old adage "you get what you pay for" still holds true.

[fedupwithdistrictwaste]

For the 8:28 poster, if you bothered to take the CRISS training back when we veterans did, you would know that LFS is plagerized CRISS strategies, as MAX Thompson himself admitted in a conference where administrators posed that question. So why are we paying for plagarized work?

Why shouldn't teachers who are taxpayers complain? We are the inside loop and see the waste, that's why.
Staff development came from the District funds, if you bothered to do more homework on the issue.

Because a district level ESE person, who will remain nameless, decided it was a "great idea", and who probably never took CRISS to know that LFS was repackaged CRISS. Pinellas was also suckered with EL, Essential Learning sold to them by another educbiz person like the Thompsons.

The purchase of this was primarily meant for newbies hired as ACP, (alternative certification program), the corporate entrants to education, to help them improve performance of their students.
A true education major already has done the LFS type stategies within their education major and is insulted when asked to redo what their credentials already say they have done. That's why the complaining!

Would corporate America make their members go back and re do their MBA's?
No they would just use inside people to train them on better sales strategies. Which is what Pasco should have done.

Money could have better been spent on in-house people who were already trained in CRISS to train all new faculty in a staff development situation, that would have cost the district at least 50-75% less than what LFS cost.

But of course the ESE director did not think like a biz person when she spent the money, it was taxpayers' money she was spending, not hers, and now we find out that it was the step increase for 09-10 that she actually spent.

So yes, we are going to complain because we see a misuse of funds that could have easily been managed better.

So I say since the District floor made the decision to waste the money, then
the district personnel should all take a 15% pay cut in lieu of the teacher/school based personnel.

[metoo]

hey fedupwithdistrictwaste:

ESE district person spent step increases for 08-09 AND 09-10.....you will not even make enough to make up for the increase in cost of living.....aka you're in the hole like the rest before you start the next two school years.

So don't go past your 8 hour day....work the exactly 8.0000 hours like the rest of America, since you are getting shafted like the rest of America.

[feduptoo]

I understand implementing LFS cost around $3,000,000........THREE MILLION DOLLARS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EVERY classroom teacher, media specialist, guidance counselor, P.E. teacher etc. was FORCED to attend FOUR full days of "training", even though Max Thompson himself said these people only needed an overview, an exposure to LFS, just to get familiar with the program. Now we get a half day planning per quarter to do the mumbo-jumbo paperwork! Do the math....see how much money was spent on subs throughout the year.
Now the superintendent is moving a high school principal and his $96,000 salary to the county office, to a still unnamed, and probably still non-existant position! Don't worry, she'll create one!
Want to save another $200,000? Just make the school board salaries $0!
My school district up north is strictly voluntary. If not that, then how about making school board members who miss their once-a-month meetings reimburse the money! That way people like the absentee member we now have on the board might leave her "sick dog" and actually show up a few times! Also, when a member recently asked the superintendent about Mr.Imerson's new position, and she said she couldn't tell them what it was going to be, yet, WHY DID YOU STILL O.K. THE MOVE? This was a blatant case of RUBBER STAMPING personified!!!

[Timmy!]

I took CRISS Training and let me say it is a feeble attempt to "Copy and Paste" what I spent 3 years doing: getting an M.S. in Reading and a Reading Specialist Certificate.

Templates are fine but unless you know and understand the concepts that make them work you can NEVER effectively modify them when they don't work.

[Ed]

1,000,000 for LFS? 4,000,000 for LFS? I've even heard 6.5,000,000 for LFS! For the first year alone. Now that the entire county has cycled through, I'm hearing upwards to 13,000,000!!!I agree with one of my colleagues that LFS stands for "Learning Fiorentino Style!"
Whatever we paid for it was too much! In the 10 years that I have been teaching, I have sat through Criss, ESOL, ESE Strategies, History Alive, Reading Endorsement and other well done District sponsored Inservices that LFS stole from! LFS was the biggest waste of my time in all of my teaching career! Iwas extremely insulted by the training and the condescension of the main trainer was enough to make me sick!!! I am an alternately certified teacher and currently hold 4 certifications and two endorsements. The district should have included those in the classroom in seeking training that was meaningful and relevant to our needs. But alas, Ms. Fiorentino appears not to be interested in our input.

[Ed]

As for the teacher referring to "LFS Haters, and negative teachers" Because of LFS and the curriculum maps I am restricted to the confines of those curriculum maps and limited to doing some of the innovative lessons that I have previously been able to do in the classroom. I am pleased that you found LFS helpful, but you would have found the trainings that were provided before the current regimen more helpful, and much less insulting to your intelligence!