Hundreds decry St. Lucie school budget cuts
March 31st, 2009 by Cara FitzpatrickFORT PIERCE - St. Lucie County parents, teachers and students brought a message to school board members Tuesday: Don’t close our schools. Don’t cut our teachers or school resource officers. And don’t get rid of our sports programs.
Their pleas were impassioned, indignant and teary.
“It’s stressful as students to have to deal with it,” Tyosha Matthews, a senior at Fort Pierce Central High School, said of proposed budget cuts.
About 800 people packed the auditorium Tuesday at Fort Pierce Central High School for a town hall meeting about a proposal to cut $30 million from the St. Lucie County School District’s $297 million operating budget for the 2009/10 school year. The school district cut about $23 million from this year’s budget.
Superintendent Michael Lannon has proposed a variety of measures to reach $30 million, including laying off 331 employees, implementing a 1 percent across-the-board pay cut, cutting junior varsity and middle-school sports, and closing two schools, Port St. Lucie Elementary and Southbend K-8 School.
School board members are expected to vote on April 7 on whether to make the proposed cuts.
Lannon, who began the meeting with a brief budget presentation, put the blame for the cuts on legislators and acknowledged that no one was likely to be happy with any of the proposals.
“We’ve already cut all the skin, all the muscle and now we’re into bone,” he said.
School board members, who said they would not respond to comments Tuesday, heard from about 60 people over the course of a couple hours.
Karen Kohler asked that all teachers on annual contracts be considered for lay-offs rather than be selected from the two schools recommended for closure.
Heather Ritter said her son, a student at Southbend K-8, has been to four schools already because of the district’s zoning and now will be moved again if the school is closed. She questioned what would happen next.
“If budget cuts come again, and we know they will, will our children be displaced again?” she asked.
Tyler Diaz asked that junior varsity and middle-school sports not be cut, as they are essential “feeder programs” to varsity-level sports.
“Why would you bother at that point?” he said of funding varsity sports without junior varsity and middle-school sports.
Vicki Rodriguez, vice-president of the teachers union, said the most serious issue to her members was how employees are treated. She asked that assistance be offered to any teachers who lose their jobs in the budget cuts.
“We really need to act like a family,” she said.
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April 1st, 2009 at 10:33 am
An example of how the luxuries become necessities and how every expenditure has a constituancy. Sorry people, it’s beyond time that the taxpayer be taken into account. Face facts, the money’s got to come from somewhere. Maybe these cuts will make everyone understand what is really important and they will be forced to focus on the basics and do away with ALL the money wasting bells and whistles.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:37 am
I agree…so many of those that want the most from the systems in place are the ones paying the least into it.
One method to help IMHO would be have the property taxes based on number of adults living in a residence. Too many are piling in to a single place creating an eyesore of a parking lot on the block. Even with HOA fines, it’s cheaper for these derelicts to simply just pay the fines each month.