Layoffs authorized for Ann Arbor schools ahead of projected $25 million budget deficit

Layoffs are coming to Ann Arbor Public Schools to head off a projected $25 million deficit in next year's school budget.

The board approved by a 4-3 vote on Thursday the authorization of layoffs for nearly all employee groups, with one bargaining unit authorized last month. The resolution does not specify the number of layoffs or which employee groups will be impacted, but any layoff would be for the 2024-25 school year.

School officials said the authorization was done so staff reductions can be included in the district's corrective action plan due to the state by April 15 and be part of the next budget that begins July 1.

Decisions on the actual number of layoffs won't be made until the district develops a comprehensive budget plan with input from staff and community, school officials said. Meetings with community member and employee groups are slated for next week.

A virtual town hall meeting is being held at 6:30 p.m. on Monday. It will be recorded and posted on the district's website. On Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., the district is hosting a community meeting at Huron High School and on Thursday at 6:30 p.m., there will be a community meeting at Skyline High School. On Wednesday, the district is meeting with staff at Pioneer High School at 3:45 pm for secondary staff and 5 p.m. for elementary staff.

In November, superintendent Jazz Parks requested an audit and informed the board in March of a budget shortfall found in the current school year budget, which ends on June 30.

Parks says the district is working with Plante Moran, a third-party independent financial firm, to confirm its analysis of district finances, but that the initial review shows "significant budget challenges for our district that will require immediate and long-term actions, some of which will be painful."

Parks said staff has increased by 480 in the last decade, while student enrollment has decreased by 1,123 over the last four years and raises for employees approved by the board have increased staffing costs.

Parks has instituted a hiring freeze, reduced central office and administrative positions, renegotiated contracts with vendors and is searching for costs savings in all departments.

Fred Klein, president of the 1,400-member Ann Arbor Education Association, said on Friday the union has been asking the district to right-size itself as the number of staff increased and the number of students declined.

With between 70 and 100 resignations and retirements per school year, Klein said the district could have used attrition to keep the budget in check.

"They have approved deficit budgets throughout the years and we knew it would lead to this point," Klein said. "They didn’t listen, and now we find ourselves in this awful position and they need to cut jobs."

Klein said is he urging the district to slow its move for layoffs in one budget year and instead take a long-term approach.

"We are urging them to slow down with the submission of a corrective action plan that gives us five years to do this. Our members will feel a lot of pain if we do it in one year," Klein said.

An analysis by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan says Ann Arbor Public Schools would need to shrink by 142 teachers if it wanted to go back the same staffing ratio it had four years ago, in the 2018-19 school year.

Craig Thiel, the CRC's research director, says the district's student-teacher ratio shrank from 15.7 students per teacher in 2018-19 to 13.8 in 2023-24. Over the five-year period, the district increased its teaching staff by 6% even as student enrollment dropped 6%.

"Districts like Ann Arbor wouldn’t have to lay off those teachers all at once. Many could start by letting attrition and slower hiring rates thin their employee ranks over time," Thiel wrote in his analysis.

"Efforts by some schools to protect classrooms from staffing cuts would shift more layoffs to other personnel areas, such as 'temporary' instructional aides and non-instructional staff that have been added to address student needs arising from pandemic disruptions," he wrote.

jchambers@detroitnews.com