Local News - Mullica Township schools to cut 12 staff positions
By ROB SPAHR, Staff Writer | Posted: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 | 0 comments
MULLICA TOWNSHIP — The Mullica Township School District plans to eliminate 12 staff positions and reduce two others from full-time to part-time.
Superintendent Richard Goldberg said the district notified a handful of employees prior to the state aid figures being released that they could be laid off if the district received flat funding.
The district’s aid actually was cut by about $260,000....Continue Reading
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“This compounded it,” said Goldberg, adding that when combined with increases in special education costs and health insurance coverage, the district faces an estimated $700,000 gap in its budget.
The jobs to be eliminated are “across the board” and include teachers, aides, secretaries, custodians and administrative staff, Goldberg said. And the two positions that will be reduced to part-time will be in areas of physical education and music instruction, he said.
“This is very painful for us … it is affecting a lot of people,” Goldberg said. “And some of these staff members have been here for 10 years.”
The district will also be reassigning its computer teachers into regular classroom teaching roles, he said.
But staffing will not be the only thing cut in this year’s budget.
“Our funding for field trips, textbooks, school supplies, and computers are all down to a pittance,” Goldberg said. “And our principals are down to less than 20 percent of the money that they had two years ago for extracurricular activities.”
Goldberg said the district would be cutting the hours for some these activities and reducing the amount of coaching positions for athletics.
“We’ll try to hang on to some of the after school activities, but it won’t be much,” he said. “And one sport will need to go.”
Goldberg called the need for cuts “devastating.”
“All of the programs that are being impacted the most are all the things that you want to have in providing a first-class education,” he said. “This is the most severe reduction I’ve ever seen.”
Contact Robert Spahr: 609-272-7283 RSpahr@pressofac.com
