No Preliminary Layoff Notices Expected in Whitnall District

The Whitnall School District has not issued any preliminary layoff notices to its staff this week, unlike some school districts across the state that are doing so in preparation of cuts in state aid and reductions in state revenue limits that are expected to be included in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal.

And Whitnall doesn’t anticipate doing so on Monday either.

“No, we don’t,” Whitnall Superintendent Lowell Holtz said. “I just gave a state of the district address to the faculty two nights ago and explained the financial situation we’re in and said it doesn’t look like we’re going to have to have layoffs.”

State law requires school districts to provide final layoff notices by March 15 to staff members. The law also requires that preliminary notices are received at least 15 days before the deadline for final notice.

It is widely believed that schools could see a reduction in state aid by as much as $900 million over the next two years and that the proposal could lower the amount of revenue that districts can collect by hundreds of dollars per student.

“If what we understand is correct, a $500 per pupil decrease, that roughly equals the reduction we’d pay in teacher benefits,” Holtz said. “That negates the need to do any quick layoffs or anything like that.”

Holtz said staff members expressed relief after his address, but that frustrations still remain.

“It’s always nice to know that you’re not going to be affected (in terms of job loss) for this coming school year, but it’s an extreme challenge, when you’ve got a personal budget of say, $40,000 of income and it’s going to be reduced by 8 to 10 percent,” he said, referring to health insurance and pension contribution concessions for state employees in Walker’s hotly debated budget-repair bill.

Holtz praised his faculty and those of other area districts , like other districts have in protest of the bill, and commended the professionalism of his staff.

“If you live in Greenfield, Greendale or Hales Corners, and if all you did was look at the 5 o’clock news, you’d think every school is shut down or every teacher is walking out,” he said. “But I don’t know of any schools in our area that did that. We talked as an administration, what would we do if it did, but it never came to fruition.

“Inside these four walls, they stay focused on the task they have here, going forward for the kids. Are they happy with what’s going on? Obviously not. But they understand the need to reduce benefits because it really does help avoid layoffs right now.”