Cuts coming to Shelton schools

On Tuesday evening, the Shelton School Board voted to reduce the number of classified and nonrepresented employees to help erase a $2.3 million budget deficit.

In a 4-1 vote, the board authorized Superintendent Wyeth Jessee to prepare a plan to reduce employees to save the district about $750,000 this school year. Becky Cronquist cast the dissenting vote.

In the resolution, the district states it doesn’t yet know how many vacancies will be created by retirements, resignations, leaves and discharges. The number of available certified positions for the 2025-26 school year also is unknown. The employees affected by the plan will be notified on or before May 15.

The school district doesn’t receive enough money from the state, Jessee said at Tuesday’s meeting.

“And so for that we are going to have to make a reduction in the cost in order to meet our basic requirement, it’s required by the state to end with a positive fund balance,” he said. “We made cuts in supplies, services and other staff, food services, and now we must, unfortunately here in midyear, make some additional reductions from those staffs that are inside our schools.”

“We have drafted a resolution that is one part of a larger strategy to reduce our expenditures and get our ending fund balance to a positive,” said the district’s new finance director, Clinton Sherman. He added, “It’s unfortunately the hardest part of the plan, to be honest with you.”

In casting the only “no” vote, Cronquist said, “I’m not clearly convinced to the reason for the budget deficit. I see people resigning or retiring from the finance office, I see red flags. My opinion.”

Keri Davidson, the vice chair of the board, mentioned she has two daughters who attend Shelton schools.

“This concerns me very much,” she said. “So I don’t take this lightly at all and I know no one does who’s dealing with this.”

“I’m just generally unhappy about the whole thing,” said Board Chair Matt Welander.

The superintendent said the RIF is a “one-time event.”

“There will not be additional reduction in force for the 2024-25 school year for us,” he said. “We do believe that with this, in addition to other activities that we have made, we will get to, again, to a positive general fund savings. Lastly, for those specifics, for the staff impacted by the reduction in force, there will be an individualized process over the next couple days that will help assist those who need employment services or have to move to a new position.”

The need to lay off staff is “a very unfortunate event,” Jessee said.

“As the superintendent of this district, as an educator, I think the thing we really have to remember is that we’re here to do the best we can to support the students and have to operate with the money we receive from the state,” he said. “Out of the district’s $83-million budget, half of that is what we call basic education. That’s basically saying that we can educate them, the 4,400 students, we can with $40 million dollars. That includes classroom teachers, your counselors, your office professionals, your substitutes, your paraeducators, bussing, power, water, maintenance and educational supplies. If you’re doing all those things, and that’s supposed to be done with $40 million, that is just not enough to provide what I consider a basic education for our students and I don’t think it’s the same thing that our families and our staff expect as well. We don’t get any money for mental health … the state doesn’t provide us those dollars. We do provide for our students.”

Several residents talked about the district’s impending layoffs during public comments.

Maria Littlerun, president of the district’s Nature Education Parents Advisory Committee, has two children at Mountainview Elementary School. Her 10-year-old son is nonverbal.

“These people (at Evergreen) are not just passionate about their work, you cannot just find them anywhere,” she said. “These are folks who are irreplaceable … Even one cut feels like too much.”

Littlerun said she wonders how potential cuts will affect her son.

“I always encourage our leaders to take their decision making seriously, that every decision you make affects each generation out,” she said. “It affects this student tomorrow, the next day, the next year.”

William Sullivan has three daughters in the district but said he might remove them. He said he understands “people at the top have been getting raises.”

When it comes to cuts, “You don’t start at the bottom, you start at the top,” Sullivan said. “How about some of the top people, who make the top money, how much do some of you guys make?” (Members of the school board are not paid).

Sullivan suggested administrators take a 10% pay cut to retain employees. He suggested Jessee take salary cut of $50,000 or $100,000.

The board members shared thoughts during their comments at the end of the meeting.

“I guess I would say it was a tough vote and a tough season in this district, and I take it seriously, we all take it seriously,” said board member James Dale. “I have family members who work here, friends who work here, so that’s not done without a lot of consideration.”

Dale added, “There’s a path forward, but it’s going to take a while. And I want to come back to what’s positive: we have amazing teachers, with amazing educators. Walk around and see what’s happening and there’s a lot of good things happening in the district.”