As Hamilton County Schools faces a budget deficit, some board members are questioning the need for certain top district officials, while others said the narrative around cuts will cause division.
The school district is looking for between $16.5 million and $18.5 million in reductions as it builds its budget for the next school year. District officials attribute the deficit to a combination of lower-than-expected local tax revenues and rising costs.
In recent weeks, school district leaders have proposed a variety of potential areas for reduction, including cutting substitute nurses and magnet school transportation, that have drawn pushback from the board and community members.
School board member Jodi Schaffer, R-East Brainerd, said at Thursday’s meeting that as she looks at reductions, she plans to focus on what’s best and right for children, as well as take a customer service approach. She’s heard from many constituents, she said, who want her to look at non-student-facing cuts first.
Two of the positions she and constituents have questions about are the community superintendents and the deputy superintendent, she said, adding that the deputy is the most powerful position with no oversight from the board.
“When I’m told that I have to take a step back and consider: Is that the case, and how do we remedy that?” Schaffer said. “Can we remedy that with some oversight of the board?”
(READ MORE: Hamilton County leaders, school system split on cause of education budget crunch)
The community superintendents oversee a larger body of work than the vast majority of superintendents in Tennessee, Superintendent Justin Robertson said. The district couldn’t do its work without them, he said, and they are critical to the system.
Without the deputy superintendent role, there would be another, most powerful position the board doesn’t have oversight of, he said.
If accountability is the concern, he said, the board can add the deputy superintendent to his evaluation. School board members annually rate the superintendent’s performance in a range of categories.
Hamilton County Schools has five community superintendents, who oversee learning communities with up to 17 schools. The community superintendents are among the district’s highest paid employees, and the deputy superintendent is the second highest paid employee in the district.
The relationship between the board and superintendent is tough with him being their only employee, Robertson said.
“What I ask from you is when we look at these positions that you trust me to put the right people in the right place to keep moving this district forward and doing it in a way that is supporting kids across this county,” Robertson said.
Vice Chair Karitsa Jones, D-Chattanooga, the board’s longest-serving member, said she would debate anyone on the board that as the district’s organization chart has evolved, it’s improved.
She has mixed emotions about Schaffer’s comments, she said. Building trust is important, and she does not believe it’s good to sit in front of someone and talk about eliminating their job.
“We are in a very delicate dance right now as it relates to public education,” she said. “I don’t want to cut a social worker. I don’t want to cut a community superintendent because they save my life on a daily basis. They probably save Justin’s too. … I’m not saying we shouldn’t review, but we really need to think about how we handle this.”
The narrative needs to be about funding, not cuts, she said, because as the board continues to talk about cuts, it will invade upon the culture and climate the district has worked hard to create.
“It’s going to cause division,” she said. “It’s going to cause angst, and if you have never seen an exodus, step on an anthill. People will start to move like never before.”
School board member Felice Hadden, R-Ooltewah, said she believes a lot of people are looking at the district’s central office as the place the board needs to make steep cuts.
District officials have proposed a 7% cut to central office staffing as part of the budget reductions.
The narrative that always comes up is that it’s the central office, Robertson said. The central office makes up 8% of an organization that employs 5,500 people and will be smaller next year with the cuts the district has made, he said.
Even if the district cut the entirety of the central office, he said, it would not generate enough money to fix the budget.
Parents, teachers and community members packed the board room Thursday. It was so full that at the start of the meeting, law enforcement had to deny entry to some because the room was at fire code capacity.
Public comment lasted for close to 90 minutes as attendees, for the most part, expressed support for and highlighted the importance of different programs and positions that could be cut.
“The reason they’re showing up now is because we’re not cutting into flesh and we’re not cutting into fat,” Robertson said. “We’re cutting muscle, and we’re cutting bones. I told you at the State of the System that we were going to have to make cuts that hurt outcomes. The reason 150 people showed up is because those are the cuts that we’re having to consider, and we’re gonna have to keep considering those until as a community we decide what we want to do with a public school system.”
School board member Jill Black, D-Chattanooga, said she was trying to imagine what it would be like if the board eliminated the deputy and community superintendent positions during the budget process and Robertson had to personally oversee direct reports from the more than 70 school principals.
“I can’t imagine being in any other corporate or private or public setting having 72 direct reports that are responsible for over 40,000 children with no help,” she said. “That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.