Despite union warning, Alachua School Board votes to cut staff hours amid budget shortfall
Despite a warning from the local teachers union, the Alachua County School Board on May 6 voted to drastically cut hours from a variety of staff positions next school year in an effort to reduce a potential $20 million budget shortfall.
The Alachua County Education Association told the board at the beginning of Tuesday's meeting and during public comment on the proposed staffing allocations manual, that it would be in violation of Florida law by deciding unilaterally to make changes to staff members' hours.
"It is illegal what you're doing," said ACEA President Cameron Ward. "...They have not negotiated for database (clerks), who are in my bargaining unit, to have a change of their working conditions. I can't make that any more clear, but this has no place, except being tabled, in my opinion."
Other impacted positions include education support professionals, clerical guidance aides and student services specialists. Also of note, school assistant principals, while not represented by the union, will be reduced from 12-month employees to 11-month employees.
The motion to approve the staffing manual was approved 4-1, with board member Thomas Vu in dissent.
"We are again about to ask a bunch of folks who can least afford to lose it, to make sacrifices while we just gave $220,000 to the folks that in this district need it the least. I have a big problem with that," Vu said. "My vote on this has changed, again in light of the direction this board is clearly headed."
Vu was referring to a vote that passed 3-2 earlier in the evening to give school and district administrators a 1.3% pay raise, retroactive to July 1, 2024. Both Vu and chair Sarah Rockwell voted against the raise, which totals about $220,000 across all administrative positions.
"If we're asking some of our most critical and lower paid staff members like our database clerks and our guidance clerical staff to make sacrifices, we should expect the same from our highest paid staff," Rockwell said.
Interim Superintendent Kamela Patton made a point to note that district staff positions totaling $4 million are being cut — not scaled back — and that administrators in the future will be tasked with doing more.
"I would encourage you that times are harder not easier for administrators," Patton said.
Vu, however, said later in the meeting that the same can be said for teachers.
"Everything we said about how we've given up district positions means everyone up here has to work more, the same is going to be said about the folks at the schools, but nobody has talked about that," he said.
The decision to give administrators a raise follows the approval of a 1.3% raise in April for teachers. Teachers ratified an agreement between the ACEA and the district after what Ward called the most "excruciating bargaining season we've ever had."