Employee layoff notices being issued in Ann Arbor Public Schools

ANN ARBOR, MI - While it held off on sending mass notices to employees, the Ann Arbor School Board began the process of informing staff that layoffs are coming to address the district’s projected $25-million shortfall.

With a 4-3 vote, the board authorized sending layoff notices to members of the Association of School and Community Service bargaining unit during its Wednesday, March 20 meeting. Trustees Torchio Feaster, Susan Ward Schmidt and Susan Baskett voted against the motion.

Some members said they wanted additional time to collect more information and input from employees before issuing any layoff notices, while others were in favor of getting the process of issuing the layoff notices in motion in order to provide employees with more time to plan if their positions were eliminated.

The board had originally intended to vote on sending the layoff notices to all staff and teacher bargaining groups as a preliminary measure toward cutting its large deficit, but opted to only send notices to ASCSA members, citing a desire to collect more feedback from staff and district stakeholders.

Different AAPS employee bargaining groups have different requirements in their contracts for layoff notices to be submitted. The ASCSA supervisors group has a required 90-day provision of notice, requiring notification of potential layoffs by March 30, AAPS Director of Human Resources Shonta Langford said.

There ASCSA includes 26 employees, who include various supervisors within the district, including its physical properties supervisor and its Rec. & Ed program supervisor, as well as coordinators of its programs related to math and science, literacy programs, fine arts and behavioral interventions.

Other groups, like office professionals and paraprofessionals, only require notices be sent two weeks prior to the end of the school year. Teachers and administrators, on the other hand, require that notices be sent before the end of the school year.

“This board vote was a painful yet necessary step toward addressing multi-year budget shortfalls due to a number of factors, including a decline in student enrollment during the last several years coupled with increases to our staff and well-deserved compensation increases for our amazing team of world-class educators, Feaster, the board president, said.

It was the recommendation of former Finance Director Marios Demetriou to get the layoff process in motion, given AAPS’ current budget situation.

Demetriou, who retired in 2020 but was brought in recently to assess AAPS’ current financial picture, said the district received a letter from the state Treasury Department requiring it lay out a plan on how to build its fund balance back up to 5% of its revenues by March 15. AAPS currently projects to be at 2% of its revenue by the end of the fiscal year.

AAPS was able to extend the deadline for its response to April 15, but Demetriou warned he didn’t think the district would be able to get another extension. Beyond the state’s required response timeline, it’s the responsible thing to do for staff who could be impacted by layoffs to have time to look for other employment opportunities, he said.

“The No. 1 reason (to send the notices now) is you want to let people know as soon as possible,” he said.

Langford agreed, saying the advantage to issuing layoff notices to all employee groups would allow more time for those potentially impacted to make critical career decisions.

“(Waiting to send notices) would alter the time people have to pursue other employment,” Langford said. “It would potentially alter the speed with which we make some of the decisions and be able to share that with our community and our staff.”

Board member Rima Mohammad said she was in favor of staggering the layoff notices according to their collective bargaining deadlines, in an effort to exhaust its options to avoid cutting as many positions as possible.

“I think it is important for the stakeholders and especially the teachers and staff to provide input before and give you more data before making those decisions,” Mohammad said.

Schmidt said, as a former former educator who has been laid off during her career, it is important to give employees notice so they can make plans about their future as soon as possible.

“I’ve been pink-slipped a lot of times during my career, and I want to know as soon as I can, because I need to make some moves,” she said. “So, I’m just thinking however we do this our staff deserves to know as soon as possible so that they can look at other options.

Members of the Ann Arbor Education Association crowded Wednesday’s board meeting urging AAPS to look elsewhere to cut before moving forward with mass layoffs.

“I urge you to find every efficiency in order to avoid laying off staff,” AAEA President Fred Klein said. “Consider upcoming retirements and resignations and use that to begin right-sizing the district before laying off any Ann Arbor Public Schools teachers. Do not make staff pay the price for your mismanagement, not just for the sake of our hard working teachers but for the sake of our students.”

AAPS projected it must cut $25 million from its 2024-25 budget, citing a loss of 1,123 students during the past four years, an increase of 480 staff positions over the past 10 years and recent raises for teachers as some of the reasons for the shortfall.

In addition, board members confirmed with Demetriou that the 2023-24 budget’s fund balance was “distorted” by $14 million in one-time state retirement funding that was budgeted as a revenue and not an expense.

The board approved amending the district’s budget on March 13 to project having just $6.3 million at the end of June. The fund balance, which had fallen to $12.8 million, or 4.1% of its expenditures as of June 30, 2023, was projected to grow $6.3 million in the budget the board passed in June.

AAPS teacher Jessica Rodriguez said she was pink-slipped by the district back in 2013, creating several months of uncertainty over whether she would have a job the next school year. She said she was disappointed, frustrated and embarrassed” to find the district in the same position and that it had not been proactive in addressing it.

“We did not create this problem and we did not ignore the problem as it grew - that’s on you,” Rodriguez said. “I find it hard to have sympathy for those of you in the position of having to make these difficult decisions now, because for at least two years you have ignored our AAEA leaders and their plea to ‘right the financial ship.’”

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