CLEVELAND — In this deficit reduction plan, Dr. Warren Morgan says you will not see school closures or additional funds that may or may not come in.
He says it doesn’t mean these aren’t things to explore in the future.
But Morgan says the goal is to avoid a deficit of $143 million by the end of the 2025-2026 school year.
“We can only operate on what we know today, and what’s within our locus of control,” said Morgan.
Inside Garrett Morgan High School campus on Tuesday, Morgan shared the future of Cleveland Metropolitan School District now that federal pandemic money will run out once this school year ends.
He says some of the projected reductions will include cutting 25 positions at the district’s central office and a plan to not hire 175 vacant teacher positions, in hopes of altogether saving more than $5 million in two years.
“When we think about how we want to prioritize, we want to make sure we are starting with central office,” said Morgan.
Other proposed cuts will include removing extra days and minutes of teaching time beginning in the 2024-2025 school year to save nearly $14 million, while also cutting the district’s summer learning to reduce the number of students but increasing the amount of instructional time to keep another nearly $32 million.
“We do not have the funds, the ARP/ESSER funds to allow us to increase our summer program and so we need to make adjustments,” said Morgan.
The district does plan to try to save $34 million by revisiting after-school programs, making it clear, that extracurricular activities like athletics, will stay in place.
CMSD is also looking into eliminating free wireless hotspots and limiting technology devices for early-grade students to reserve just over $6 million.
In addition, a temporary reduction in employer premiums paid into the district's self-funded health insurance plan is being explored.
“The five-year forecast starting in 2021 shows that this upcoming school year would be the year we would have a deficit,” said Morgan.
Morgan says he can’t guarantee teachers will not lose their jobs, but he thinks the impact will be minimal, which the Cleveland Teachers Union President Shari Obrenski says she supports.
“I always like to hear when the district starts talking about budget cuts and they’re saying they’re going to keep them away from the classroom,” said Cleveland Teachers Union President Shari Obrenski.
However, Obrenski does wish these difficult decisions could’ve been made sooner.
“We knew what we had been spending those dollars on. We could’ve made those decisions back in November,” said Obrenski.
This plan will be submitted to the board on February 27 for approval and then to the state on February 29.
The district is working with different community partners for the cuts they plan to make and will also put this information on their website for parents to explore.
