Liveblogging the SRC & budget meeting
Complete coverage of the Philadelphia School District by the Philadelphia Inquirer's Kristen Graham.
Liveblogging the SRC & budget meeting
Kristen Graham
5:50 p.m.:
Nobody thought the Philadelphia School District’s 2013-14 budget would be pretty, and it’s not: a $2.6 billion spending plan with a gap of $242 million.
The best-case scenario to fill that gap, district officials said Thursday night, was the city coughing up an additional $60 million, the state an additional $120 million, and unions agreeing to $134 million in givebacks.
Everyone involved acknowledged it was a brutal spending plan.
Chief Financial Officer Matthew Stanski described it as a “shared sacrifies budget,” and said that after the School Reform Commission was forced to borrow $300 million just to pay its bills through the end of June, and close over 30 schools in the last 18 months, the new budget would at least wipe out the structural deficit.
Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said protecting classrooms was a top priority.
“We’re trying not to impact schools any more than they’ve been impacted already,” Hite said.
The operating budget will not require the loss of any classroom jobs. But the loss of $134 million in federal grant funds - that’s a separate pool of money - could mean the loss of 1,300 school and school-related positions.
Expiring federal stimulus money, cuts to Title I, the loss of large Department of Labor and Department of Education grants all mean that the district’s neediest children are likely to be affected.
Hite described the federal cuts as affecting “highly impacted groups of students - special ed, free and reduced lunch, English language learners.”
In terms of union givebacks, the district is banking on a roughly 10 percent pay cut and 10 percent benefit contributions from employees. (It will also impose those on non-union employees, Stanski and Hite said.)
This is a developing story. Check back for more details.
EARLIER:
Hi, all, and welcome to a special SRC meeting for the purpose of introducing the 2013-14 budget. No details yet, but the meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:30, and it's likely to be a tough spending plan, following a year when the district had to borrow $300 million to make ends meet.
I'll be live tweeting, and you can live stream the SRC meeting here.
There are 13 speakers on various topics, from budget to Head Start closings.
This comment has been deleted.— GZimmermanDidNothingWrong- Shared sacrifice my foot. Even The Queen of Greed gave back some of her salary. Hite ain't givin back nuttin. What about the 25 hefty pay raises to Christina (not so tina) Ward and the other 24 political appointments? Those raise must be reversed then take 10% of all of the non reps pay too on top of that. Any administrator making over $100 K should be giving back 20% or more. That is what shared sacrifice means.
Like I always says sometimes...PHILADELPHIA'S NEW LOW IS OUR MAN HITE!!!!!— DarnelX - Hey Billy Hite, give back $1000 for every wrinkle in your ugly chrome dome...that should do the trick. — DarnelX
- Try to show a little pride in your work, The second sentence has an obvious typo. I would be mortified but you probably don't even care.— TripleCap
- Our wannabe Republican Mayor is gonna turn the screws again on the working man. He'll make GOP Hq in Harrisburg happy.— zsaru
- The state is not giving any more tax money to Philadelphia. Well the unions are going to take some big concessions because there is no way they can ask the tax payer to pay more when they just did avi and the city has 650 million in back due property taxes. This is what happens when you have white or affluent flight for 30 years and to many takers instead of people who produce. The big elephant in the room are the pensions and health care and if the teachers had 401k and paid for insurance the budget problem would be solved. The tax payer thanks the SRC for privatizing the school district with charters.— PhillySM
- This problem is easily soled. The schools would be properly funded ad we would not have to live in constant fear of higher taxes.
Go on State rep Jim Cix`s website and read all the facts yourself and then hound your state reps to support senate bill 76 or house bill 76.— patty b - No controls on spending and these are educators.— DEBBY1958
- Debby1958, they are cutting spending INSIDE THE CLASSROOM. The ONLY spending not being cut is PENSIONS. Pensions are the SOLE reason why the budget is out of control and cannot, under any realistic plan, be continued. ALL past, present, and future pensions must be cut 50%. End of story. No other option has legs. The system WILL (has) go (gone) bankrupt.
- And what do you do next year? When pension costs go up 8%? That's another 80 MILLION. Pensions, Pensions, Pensions 1/3 of the ENTIRE annual budget AND GROWING 8-12% per year. Impossible to maintain.— warrentheape
- This is what ALWAYS happens when you work with unions: terrible performance combined with run away debt. Unions deliberately make conditions worse, squander their finances, then argue for more money based on the damage, then repeat. This is ALL THEY KNOW. Also, pensions (defined BENEFIT retirement plans) should never have even existed. People need retirement plans but they should ALL be DEFINED CONTRIBUTION plans, which could actually be sustainable. Unions HATE sutainability because there is never a time to picket march, WAAAAAAH! It is time to have right to work laws in every state. How can people that call themselves "workers", be agaist the right to work?? Forward!— 1980phillies
- Why in the name of God would the state give one more nickel to this dump when Mayor Urkel and the rest riding in the Democrat clown car refuse to collect taxes meant to fund the schools? The rest of the state is sick and tired of supporting these irresponsible Democrat party fools.— b,ill a,tkins
- She fixed the typo. We'll take it.— TripleCap
- Ooops, time to reassess the AVI!— STEPHEN1988
- Response to the bill atkins guy: I am a SDP teacher and, sadly, agree with you. I don't agree that it's a Democrat thing, but why would ANYONE give Philly money? Take care of those who help themselves.— omseeker
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.
