School budget crisis could've been worse

Will I have a job?

It's the apprehensive question reverberating throughout parts of the Manatee School District family, a vibrant part of our community’s core and identity.

Such is the fallout from Monday night’s School Board meeting where Superintendent Tim McGonegal made his recommendations on budget cuts for the next school year.

School psychologists.

Secretaries.

Social workers.

They’re among the jobs vulnerable to McGonegal’s Plan A, $12 million in cuts that calls for eliminating 19 staff jobs but all those are now vacant positions. He’s also proposing furloughs for administrators, supervisors and managers, and outsourcing work that involves 50 jobs, almost all custodial.

In addition, principals would have to whack from $30,000 at elementary schools to $88,000 at high schools out of their own budgets.

That will not be easy.

McGonegal’s Plan B is for $16.9 million in cuts, addresses the school district’s mismanaged health care program and calls for deeper individual school budget reductions and additional furloughs.

It could’ve been worse.

A lot worse.
 
 
Read more in Wednesday's Mannix About Manatee on Bradenton.com.