Exactly 200 public school employees have taken advantage of a buyout offered by Hamilton County Schools, officials confirmed Friday.
Eight principals, nine assistant principals and 21 central office personnel took the retirement incentive, which was offered last month to longtime employees.
The buyout will reduce the number of employees who must be laid off to balance the school system’s $20.2 million projected deficit, said schools’ spokeswoman Danielle Clark.
“People will still be laid off,” she said. “It just won’t be several hundred.”
The school system potentially still could cut at least 200 positions, Ms. Clark said, but might lay off fewer than 20. Employees who don’t take the buyout still have until June 30 to let district officials know if they plan to resign. After that, administrators will begin shuffling personnel around the district to fill gaps.
District administrators met their goal of signing up 200 employees, and still expect the payout to be about $2 million, Ms. Clark said. Officials in the human resources and finance departments now are working to determine whether the employees who took the buyout are eligible for retirement, she said.
Even though the buyout will cost the district some money up front, school board member Linda Mosley said the annual $3 million savings was worth it.
“This is going to be a good springboard for us to balance the budget,” she said.
Health care reporter Emily Bregel has worked at the Chattanooga Times Free Press since July 2006. She previously covered banking and wrote for the Life section. Emily, a native of Baltimore, Md., earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Columbia University. She received a first-place award for feature writing from the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists’ Golden Press Card Contest for a 2009 article about a boy with a congenital heart defect. She ...
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