Kristen Graham tweets School Reform Commission meeting
Complete coverage of the Philadelphia School District by the Philadelphia Inquirer's Kristen Graham.
Kristen Graham tweets School Reform Commission meeting
Kristen Graham
Update, 7:15 p.m.
The $2.5 billion 2012-13 Philadelphia School District budget passed unanimously, with SRC members making it clear that they were voting only on the spending plan, but not on any transformation plan. "Shame on you!" shouts went up as commissioners voted.
Update, 6 p.m.
In the wildest SRC meeting in recent memory, an angry audience has halted the proceedings several times with chants, sign-waving and whistles.
Members of the public have been intermittently interrupting the meeting for a half hour and counting.
"We've listened to your feedback," Chief Academic Officer Penny Nixon said. The audience booed. Nixon has said she wants to build a firewall around school budgets.
SRC Chairman Pedro Ramos, responding to public outrage over a proposed complete overhaul of the district, said that "we are not about privatizing public education."
"Bullshit," the audience shouted.
Update, 5:45 p.m.
Over the objection of hundreds, the School Reform Commission is poised to adopt a $2.5 billion 2012-13 billion budget at a dramatic Thursday night meeting interrupted several times by an angry public.
No one - activists or officials - likes the spending plan, which leaves many schools without full-time nurses or police officers and banks on new city money that may not come through.
But "in this circumstance, we have little choice," Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Knudsen said in a press briefing held before Thursday night's SRC meeting. "We are effectively maxing out our credit card."
The district will borrow $218 million to meet expenses, but says it will be able to restore finances to structural balance - not spending more money than they take in - by 2013-14.
And if the $94 million expected from the mayor's Actual Value Initiative tax plan doesn't come through? Borrowing appears to be out.
Knudsen, who was brought in by the SRC in January to help manage the district out of crisis, said the district can borrow the $218 million.
"We don't have the capacity to go much beyond that, I don't believe," said Knudsen.
School budgets have already been decimated by two rounds of cuts this year, and officials are trying to avoid further reductions.
Hundreds rallied before the meeting began, shouting their objections to a budget they say shortchanges kids. The crowd - many of whom packed the SRC auditorium - briefly halted the meeting with cries of "Save Our Schools!"
But Knudsen said this budget stretches the district to the limits of its financial capabilities.
"This is why we're incuring a $218 million deficit," he said. "We're borrowing essentially to maintain the academic programs in the schools. I don't know what else to do. I don't know where else we go. We are at the best level of service that we can provide within the context of the funds that we have available."
A coalition organized to oppose the budget and a planned transformation of the school district - and some city councilpeople - wonder why the district is asking the city but not the state for more money.
Chairman Pedro Ramos said this SRC refuses to repeat the mistakes of its predecessors - budgeting based on hopes rather than reality.
"This year's students were subjected to at least three rounds of budget cuts because the adults last year did what they what they wished for and what they wanted to hear, as opposed to planning responsibly to meet the needs of children the best that they could," said Ramos.
Though the fiscal reality is ugly, principals and teachers, Ramos believes, would say, "just give me the real number, instead of giving me a fake number and then having to come back and cut two or three times."
It was the actions of the prior SRC and administrations that put the district in the shape it's in now - teetering on the brink of insolvency, Ramos said.
How bad are things? A few months ago, the newly-reconstituted SRC found the district in such dire financial shape that without corrective action, the district would have run out of cash this month, then again in July, "and would have gone so far under on cash that it couldn't come back," he said.
But cost-cutting actions taken by the SRC since January staved off the wolf at the door - for now.
The district is planning on $50 million in savings from modernizing its maintenance, transportation and custodial services, and it has sent layoff notices to all 2,700 members of 32BJ, the union representing bus aides, cleaners, building engineers and other blue collar workers.
Workers fear their jobs will be privatized to cut costs. 32BJ and the district are currently in negotiations, and union leaders say they have proposed cost savings.
City Council on Thursday passed a resolution saying they will hold up the SRC's budget until an agreement is reached with 32BJ. The first round of layoffs are scheduled to take effect July 1.
Ramos said that resolution does not affect the budget.
"We understand that there's a lot of sympathy in Philadelphia for unions," Ramos said. "But we are in a situation where we have to put the interests of our students - today's students and tomorrow's students - ahead of adults."
Negotiations with 32BJ continue, Knudsen said.
District leaders have also said they expect the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to come to the table soon, though its contract does not expire until August 2013. The district is banking on $156 million in savings from labor contracts in its five-year plan.
PFT leaders have said they will not negotiate early or make any financial concessions.
"You can't say that you're just about education and you're just about the kids when adults all refuse to do more or give something up," Ramos said. "We all share the circumstances in which we find ourselves today and in the next few years."
Ramos also questioned the motivation of the activists who protested at the meetings.
"I think parents are often drowned out by existing adult economic interests," he said. He said that the coalition organized to oppose the budget was being funded by unions, specifically by the PFT.
Inquirer schools reporter Kristen Graham is live tweeting today's School Reform Commission meeting and the protests planned by teachers, parents and students. The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. On a mobile device? Click here to follow. Click to read today's story by Kristen.
- Sorry hit the send button. My point is if there was a party they missed it.
— herbie - @wolfburn: How do you know this? Have you collected a stellar teacher's salary and benefits? While you were teaching did you sit there and do nothing and still get a huge salary and benefits? How many classes per day were on your roster? In what part of the City did you teach? An opinion of an insider is valuable.— wiltech
- The SRC has done a fine job of getting uninformed teacher haters on their side, but it's not logical that the employees that make between 30,000 and 55,000 a year with health benefits that are about the same as any other business, are the root of the problem. It's back room deals with the Kenny Gambles of the world,and companies that supply video cameras to schools at prices 10X their actual worth,along with superintendents that are paid 7 figures to go away after they made further back room deals along with the SRC, while showing total incompetence at running a school system. It should not cost 18 grand a year per kid to educate our children, and I guarantee you they do it for much less in other cities. Until they get back to running the system in a simple, economically feasible way, where private contractors are not involved in our kids education, and teachers are allowed to teach the basics without some absurd national exam looming in the background, rather than a simple mission to teach, the school district will always be a failure.— drbob1
Comment removed.- Cleanup, let them have the pension and the healthcare! drbob's argument is dead on, and to suggest otherwise is... disingenuous. Public service is not easy, ESPECIALLY for school district teachers. Throw them a damn bone, fercrissakes. I'd rather my tax money go to that than the entities drbob writes about. — TheLowDown
- Comment removed.
- Why doesn't the SDP sell advertising space on the sides of their buildings and their school buses? Nothing provocative. It would raise funds and make them independent of all this drama every year trying to balance budgets on the backs of already burdened tax payers.— IGottaComment
- Comment removed.
- On your pension point... In years to come as the pension grows and costs are greater than earnings growth. Will it be the tax payer that is at fault for the lack of funding or is it the school and govt system that took a greater piece of the students budget pie.— JL68
- Of course, it's the teachers fault. Its our fault when kids who don't come to school can't read, its our fault when students are violent and completely disruptive in schools and its now our fault why the district is poorly run and managed. I mean, look how over paid we are...geesh. Can you imagine paying a a college educated professional who is excellent at their job $50,000/year?? http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/e/ee/information-center/offices/e/ee/resources/information-center/salary-schedule2
Its just so tiresome trying to defend our pay from uninformed, loud-mouth jackaloons. Walk a mile in a SDP teachers shoes before you criticize. You know what, forget a mile, try to make it ten feet...— iteachmath - Comment removed.
- THE PARTY IS OVER FOR THE PFT UNION "ADULTS"-They only care about their own power and control of the millions of dollars they collect from every teacher in the city. Their salaries and pensions from both the School District and the union is what they care about. They dine in the best restaurants in the city and spend spend spend the teachers union dues. Wake up teachers. Ask your union bosses where they ate for dinner. Ask them how much their pensions are worth. Ask them how much their salaries are. Ask them who pays them, and how many paychecks they receive. Ask them who pays for their cars. In case they don't tell you. IT'S YOU.— teachtall
- Comment removed.
- ok so lets look at it this way... you want more money, but there is no money..so the option is raise taxes on people to pay for more right ? Yet some how whenever I read this budget protest, or strikes its always a more benefits issues yet some how that makes my kids school better ? How bout the Admins take a pay cut, cut back on things like insane benefits that the union get? I can not wait to be out of this city next year. 2.5B dollar budget and, yet your closing schools like its going out of style and yet some how there is never enough money, every year there is not enough money and noones fault ? Im real tired of this, this city is a joke, dont worry detriot philly will keep ya company. the parents in this city are a joke, noone cares because someone else will take care of it. anyone curious why my kids go to school outside the district and I even gasp pay extra money for it.— Iknowyourider
- Why wait a year? Leave now. Seriously, your attitude is not helping. — F. Harry Stowe
During the school year, you’ll frequently find her hosting live chats about the district on Philly.com. Please do pass along the scoop about what’s going on at your Philadelphia public school; Kristen welcomes tips, story ideas and witty banter at kgraham@phillynews.com or 215-854-5146.
You can also follow Kristen on Twitter here.
