3/20/2011 4:35:00 AMLocal fiscal woes, tight state budget and no levy effort add up to a need for cuts and creativity in Cleveland schools: editorial
March 20, 2011, 4:45 AM
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board
When companies can't meet their budgets, they change. In dire circumstances, that can mean heaving nonessential departments and personnel overboard to balance the books and keep the business afloat.
Well, dire is the word for what confronts the Cleveland school district.
It faces a $47.5 million projected deficit in 2012. And despite a monster overhaul last year that shuttered 15 buildings, too many of its students remain trapped in failing schools.
If interim Cleveland schools CEO Peter Raskind is to right this ship, he and his team need to give the heave-ho to a great deal more of the district's dead weight, and they have to be creative about change. That's particularly urgent since Gov. John Kasich's just-unveiled budget proposal for the next two years makes clear that there is no chance of state revenue sailing to the rescue.
Fortunately, there are signs that Raskind, a former banking CEO, gets it. He recently said he might consider selling the district's historic administration building on East Sixth Street -- an idea that previous CEOs regarded as heresy. Yet if the district has too much of anything right now, it's real estate -- and a need to cut back on administrative largesse.
Whittling the number of central office employees, as Raskind suggests, should happen before the ax falls on teachers, who work directly with students.
Still, in the end, Raskind will have no choice but to cut some teachers and close schools -- just as his predecessor, Eugene Sanders, did last year.
Nearly 70 percent of the district's $663.5 million operating budget is wrapped up in salaries and benefits. And enrollment, like Cleveland's population, is falling. The bulk of the cuts should be directed at neighborhoods with the sharpest enrollment losses and failing schools that can't be saved.
Harsh measures are inevitable, but the district needs to make as many of its academic cuts as possible with a scalpel, not a machete.
Unfortunately, asking residents for more money is not an option. A levy trial balloon lost its air after Sanders' abrupt retirement announcement last December. As usual, the district then waited until the 11th hour to tackle the "what next" question.
It's good to hear that Raskind is planning two meetings this month with members of the community. He should listen carefully to what residents have to say. But with the board planning to vote on cuts as early as April 5, that's not much time for community input. Clevelanders who want to be heard need to jump at Raskind's invitations.
David Quolke, president of the Cleveland Teachers Union, is right that the district should have started holding these meetings as soon as it decided against a levy effort.
The blame for that lies not with Raskind, who took on interim CEO duties only after Sanders left last month, but with Sanders, for bequeathing a teetering budget to his successor.
But if school officials now listen to residents and remain open-minded and creative about solutions, and if Raskind and Quolke can find common ground on layoffs, there could still be a relatively soft landing for students and teachers alike.