HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. – Mass emails being sent out to teachers losing their jobs may not be enough to plug the hole in a $107,000,000 budget shortfall facing the 8th largest school district in the United States, Hillsborough County.
Superintendent Addison Davis and his staff have been talking about the district’s budget problems and their plans to fix those problems, but have come under fire from both local and state officials.
On Thursday, Commissioner Richard Corcoran sent an open letter to school officials saying “the district’s lack of attention to this issue since 2015 has already created a disruption with your workforce, and your lack of comprehensive and timely action at present threatens the basic delivery of educational services to Hillsborough’s students.”
Corcoran is threatening a state takeover if the financial situation for the district does not improve and said he would use emergency action to bring the school district into compliance with Florida law.
Superintendent Davis has presented a plan to try to balance the budget, but it does include eliminating more jobs and consolidating more programs within the district.
At a special meeting called on Friday, board members spoke up.
Board Member Melissa Snively from District 4 said to Superintendent Davis, “I’m going to say this very respectfully. I think most people tuned you out about halfway through that speech, and I’ll tell you why. People just want you to acknowledge how they feel and apologize for the mistakes that you made and promise you will do better.”
School Board member Karen Perez from District 6 said in the special board meeting Friday, “With the call to action that has been requested by all of us, we dipped into the general fund and the capital monies for computers with the intention of returning that money with the CARES act.”
“According to what we were told if we went into our general fund to use that money for our COVID issues, that the money would be returned to us. Now we are being told that we have to come up with a financial plan, not to include those funds,” said Perez.
Hillsborough County School District has 18 remaining days to put together a budget recovery plan and present it to the state on how they plan to solve the financial crisis moving forward and into the next several years, while a looming state takeover is possible if a plan does come to fruition.
Read the letter from Commissioner Richard Corcoran Here: