Harlingen school district working to cut millions in costs

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HARLINGEN — School district officials are planning to offer retiring and resigning professionals $1,000 “incentives” while “absorbing“ nearly 50 positions as they work to cut millions of dollars in costs after former Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez’s administration pulled $23.2 million in cash reserves to cover unbudgeted expenses.

Now, the district’s fund balance stands at $19.8 million, board member Rickey Leal said Tuesday.

As they work to develop the district’s new fiscal plan, officials are focusing on key funding sources such as student enrollment and average daily attendance.

In a meeting of the new Finance and Planning Committee, officials called for a marketing program aimed at boosting enrollment, which dropped to 16,461, down 319 students from last year.

Based on a state formula, for every student attending class, the state gives the district about $6,460.

“The competition right now is at its highest level it’s ever been for students,” board member Dr. Nolan Perez said during the Dec. 3 meeting, pointing to area school districts.

“We know that everyone has open enrollment, so they’re all taking kids from everywhere,” he said. “We know that they’ll be increasing competition for students and choice for parents and students. So the timing is critical now that we get ahead of it.”

So far, officials are planning to cut $7.2 million in expenditures, including $1.7 million in consulting fees while reviewing staffing of 24 to 25 positions to save $1.5 million and making 10% cuts in department budgets to slash another $1.5 million.

Meanwhile, they’re planning to reclassify contracted security costs under a grant to save $613,829, reclassifying 30 custodians into the food service department to save about $600,000 while reclassifying summer school costs under a grant to save $405,792.

While officials are planning to slash overtime by $500,000, they’re calling for a $388,582 cut in travel expenses.

“As we have started the school year, you know we have been looking at all of our expenditures and also identifying areas that we can decrease in our expenditures,” interim Superintendent Veronica Kortan told board members.

As they plan the “right-sizing” of the district, officials will be offering retiring and resigning professionals $1,000 “incentives,” Assistant Superintendent Debbie Scogin told board members.

“That way we can identify areas where we know we need to staff and other positions that may be closed through attrition,” she said.

So far, officials have “absorbed” about 47 positions, based on attrition, Scogin said.

While officials are reviewing central office programming this month, next month they’ll be meeting with central office department directors while planning to meet with campus principals in February to review staffing for the next year, she said.

“It’s a comprehensive look at where we’re at, what staffing they currently have and what the staffing will look like for the following year based on projections and historical data on what their enrollment is generally like,” she said. “It’s a great opportunity for us to start to forecast and then identify areas where we will have some vacancies so that we can start a recruitment process early in spring.”

Across the district, officials are “rethinking budget planning,” Ida Ambriz, the district’s accounting director, told board members, adding they’re planning to offer “budget training” while creating a budget committee.

Now, officials are calling on department heads to “prioritize budget needs,” she said.

“We want to make sure that our campuses and departments aren’t doing cut-and-paste type budgets where they continue to submit the same budget every single year,” Ambriz told board members. “We want them actually prioritizing what these budget needs are.”

In late August, board members set up the Finance and Planning Committee to review district expenses after Gonzalez’s administration pulled $23.2 million from the district’s fund balance to cover unbudgeted expenses.

“Many of these expenditures were beyond the approved budget and occurred without adequate communication to the board,” Marcy Martinez, the district’s spokeswoman, said in news release at the time of the committee’s formation.

Days later, Gonzalez, who had taken office a year before after serving as McAllen’s superintendent, suddenly resigned with two years left on his contract, five months after board members gave him a one-year contract extension along with a $10,000 pay increase, bumping his salary to $310,000.

After naming Kortan, the district’s deputy superintendent, to serve as interim superintendent, officials began working to develop their new fiscal plan.

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