Monday, June 6, 2011

Gorman: Trying to avoid layoff angst

Superintendent Peter Gorman emailed Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools employees today to explain why a layoff vote has been delayed two days, to a special meeting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Government Center (it's open to the public).

If county commissioners approve an additional $26 million, as expected, the job cuts won't be as drastic as what Gorman and the board have been talking about. "We don’t want to notify employees that they are losing their jobs, then have to rescind that," Gorman writes. "We don’t want to put our employees through any more anxiety than is necessary and we’re glad our Board is deferring this vote."

Here's the whole memo:
From: "Peter C. Gorman" <peter.gorman@cms.k12.nc.us>
Date: June 6, 2011 4:48:19 PM EDT
To: cmsmailall <cmsmailall@cms.k12.nc.us>
Subject: Budget update
Dear CMS employees,
As we move closer to the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners’ vote on county funding for CMS, the situation continues to be very fluid. The county commissioners will vote tomorrow on our funding and this has led to a change in our schedule.
Our Board of Education was scheduled to vote tonight on the reduction in force, giving us the authority to move forward on it. But last week’s straw votes by the Board of County Commissioners suggest that we may get an additional $26 million over what we originally planned.
We don’t want to notify employees that they are losing their jobs, then have to rescind that. So instead of voting for the reduction in force at its meeting today, our Board will defer the vote on the reduction in force until Wednesday. By then, we expect to know for certain what our county funding will be.
We don’t want to put our employees through any more anxiety than is necessary and we’re glad our Board is deferring this vote. The past three years have been so difficult for all CMS employees, our students and their families -- and this year in particular has been hard because we’re closing some schools. So it seems wise to wait and see what our county funding will be. Our Board will meet in a special open session at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
The county vote will resolve some of the uncertainty for all of us. We are still waiting on a budget from the state, of course, so we don’t know our full budget yet. But we are hoping that we’ll get some good news from the county tomorrow night.
We’ll continue to keep you posted as events occur.
Pete
Peter C. Gorman
Superintendent
Government Center
600 East 4th Street
Charlotte, NC 28202
980-343-6270 -- phone
980-343-7135 -- fax

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hopefully, many will be able to keep their jobs. Sadly, Pete has already assigned many to other jobs at other schools. So, he has already created angst by doing that. If people get to stay, they have to apply for the jobs they already had. Principals won't be able to rehire teachers they lost. Pete, you have already created more unrest than this district has seen in years...maybe you should reapply for your job!

Anonymous said...

Actually we need to be very careful about how any money is used. Remember we suddenly had $1.9 million in " leftover funds" last year that Pete used on the summative tests. Hope the school board and COUNTY forces him to use funds in the way they were meant to be used, not squirreled away to pay for his ( lack of) performance plan.

Anonymous said...

Dear Pete,
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Anonymous said...

So does this mean if you were RIFed in April or May, you might still have your job after all? This is very confusing!

Anonymous said...

He is trying to play it to the public like it hasn't happened yet. He is such a moron. I agree with that post a couple up! HA!

Anonymous said...

The RIF has already happened...even more trust has been broken. Remember folks, we are living on more than 20 million saved from last year (not to mention the summative fiasco money). So, we will be doing this all again next year. Pete doesn't want to put back all the positions...so despite their priorities in Tier 4, the only thing likely to happen is the FRL weighted staffing (based on fraud) and maybe 42 instead of 43 kids in grades 4-12. Also, isn't the state going to direct local districts to shift money to have lower class sizes in grades K-3? I don't think they are actually giving cash for that??...just telling the districts they have to do it. Pretty sad when the number of students in three lower grade classes will equal one upper grade class!

Anonymous said...

What is this a game? Gorman sent out letters to staff on Friday informing teachers if they are eligible for rehire and has already received the money to do so (weeks ago)! This is getting to be ridiculous

Anonymous said...

Still nothing about Athletic Directors only teaching ONE class receiving 25 hours of planning time and a supplement on top of that.Many head coaches only teach TWO classes with planning time and supplement.All these articles about good teachers and media workers being laid off. Follow the money! What do taxpayers really get?