Another $8.5M cut from Orange County Public Schools’ budget, district says
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. —
Orange County Public Schools announced another $8.5 million in budget reductions Wednesday, citing declining enrollment and rising costs, according to an internal memo.
In the memo, the district said its 10-day enrollment count confirms a continued decline and, because state funding is largely driven by student enrollment, the memo further states that “any decline results in a reduction in state funding.”
Those numbers show enrollment is down by around 7,800 students.
State funding per student is $9,300, so the district is forced to slash its budget by millions.
“At the same time, OCPS continues to face increasing healthcare costs associated with the growing deficit in the Employee Benefits Trust, placing additional pressure on the District’s budget,” the district said, adding that each passing month without changes to the health insurance plan costs it another $20 million.
“We do know at the district level right now we’ve cut — on top of the 5% budget cut that we’ve done over the past two years — we’re cutting an additional $8.5 million,” Scott Howat, Orange County Public Schools’ chief communications officer, told WESH 2 reporter Gail Paschall-Brown.
“And that’s out of a $7.53 billion budget, correct?” Paschall-Brown asked.
“Correct,” Howat replied.
Schools that enrolled fewer students than projected will see adjustments to their budget allocations, the district’s memo states.
Paschall-Brown asked Howat, “Does that mean there will be positions cuts or people laid off or what will happen there?”
Howat replied, “They’ll look at their overall — Do they have any vacancies? What does it look like as far as class size numbers? — and then they’ll combine classes. Some individuals may be not laid off but moved towards resources where other resources are needed. They could be laid off according to their contract status but basically, they go through this process of reducing down their staffing levels, whether it’s positions or people, in order to right size to what their enrollment is.”
The memo continues, bringing up “that the District has already taken significant steps to reduce costs at the central office.”
“More than 200 district-level positions were eliminated at the end of the last fiscal year,” the memo states.
Toward the end of August, the school district reported its significant enrollment decline exceeded the state of Florida’s projection of just over 2,000.
According to Superintendent Dr. Maria Vazquez, VPK enrollment numbers are down significantly — with the greatest losses occurring at the elementary level — and middle and high school enrollment declined as well.
“The good news is we are not going to see the number of layoffs that you would see with almost an 8,000 loss of students. There will be some,” Vazquez said.
Due to a loss of 8,000 students in the past three years, including 4,000 in the past year, the district closed six elementary schools and a middle school while moving more than 2,000 students to other campuses beginning this fall. The closures included Bonneville, Chickasaw, Eccleston, McCoy, Meadow Woods, and Orlo Vista elementary schools, as well as Union Park Middle School.
During Orange County’s “State of the Schools” address in June, Vazquez said the district was already dealing with a $40 million shortfall and called for Orange County voters this November to renew the $1 million property tax that supports education.
>> This is a developing story and will be updated as more information is released