How many people will be affected by FCPS layoffs, cuts? Leaders won’t say
Fayette County Public Schools officials on Tuesday declined to say how many employees will be affected by staffing cuts the district will implement beginning July 1.
But school officials said the cuts, which includes elimination of positions at the district level and cuts to number of days worked, will generate $1.9 million in savings for the cash-strapped district.
The district announced Monday two types of cuts for the district’s more than 8,000 full and part-time employees. Employees with 12-month contracts, or 10.5 month hourly contracts, as well as those in child nutrition, librarians and law enforcement will have cuts to the number of calendar days worked.
District officials also said there will be layoffs and elimination of some positions at the district level.
Teachers and paraeducators, who work with teachers, will not be affected by the staffing cuts, school officials have said.
Fayette County Superintendent Demetrus Liggins said during a press conference Tuesday that employees who have 12-month contracts, including principals, will no longer be paid for five calendar days. Liggins and school officials did not elaborate on the number of days other employees would be cut.
“We do not have the exact number of people affected,” Liggins said. He said that will be finalized by May 15.
Liggins said the district reviewed when school employees took time off in order to calculate cuts. That review showed many employees took vacation days during some of the district’s breaks. For example, students are typically gone for five days for fall break. Many of the district’s year-round employees typically took that week or part of that week off, Liggins said.
The cuts to staff come as the district is grappling with financial uncertainty after various audits and examinations found the financial information the district has relied on is not accurate. The district’s financial position is much more precarious than previously thought.
During Monday’s Fayette County Board of Education meeting, interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch, who has been hired to help ferret out financial irregularities, said one of the issues recently uncovered was a six-figure financial services contract the board and superintendent had never seen.
Worse, the contract was paid for using instructional money even though the contract was for financial services, Koch said.
On Tuesday, Koch declined to name the vendor or explain what the contract was for. Koch said it was a $200,000 contract for two years.
Koch also said the district has not determined how much money it has lost in federal reimbursements because deadlines had been missed in the past for those grants. The district disclosed Monday for the first time that school budget officials missed reimbursement deadlines.
But Koch said it is possible the district’s contingency fund balance, how much it has at the end of the fiscal year, will dip below 2% of the district’s total budget, which could trigger Kentucky Department of Education intervention.
To date, KDE has remained mum on whether it will intervene at FCPS given the questions swirling about its finances. School officials and KDE are expected to meet Thursday, said Miranda Scully, a district spokeswoman. Koch and school officials have been in contact with state education officials since the problems with the district’s accounting practices were uncovered. KDE spokesperson Jennifer Ginn said the department was monitoring the situation.
Koch, who has been brought in three separate times to help right the district’s finances, said this time she has been given broad latitude by Liggins to dig deep and uncover why the finances are in turmoil.
She has found multiple instances where money has been moved from various accounts to cover expenses. Koch has previously said it does not appear money is missing, but money has not been spent on the things it was intended for.
“The financial records have fundamentally been misstated for years,” Koch said Tuesday. “So far, we have identified concerns regarding internal controls and oversight, procurement and contract procedures, receivables and payables, record keeping and missed deadlines, miscoded spending, and allocations.”
Koch said the district will restate its financial reports for the last fiscal year.
“My goal is that next month, the financial report for April will be correct. We will not be completely finished drilling into the numbers, but the bulk of the adjustments will have been made,” Koch said.
Koch reiterated Tuesday she will ask the board to approve seeking a short term loan from a lending agency that school districts can use to address a cash flow problem.
