School Personnel Cuts Result in Just One Layoff

Last spring, Piedmont's school board authorized the district administration to cut the equivalent of up to 8.4 full-time positions in order to trim $300,000 to $500,000 from the PUSD's budget and help close what was initially projected to be a $5 million shortfall through 2013. With and reassignments of existing personnel, they managed to hit the target with minimal layoffs.

The least senior language arts teacher at Piedmont High School was the one who lost her job. Other reductions, totalling the equivalent of 5.2 full-time positions, hit administrative and custodial staffing, library services throughout the district, the high school and elementary school math, and the .

The cuts add up to approximately $454,000. However, the actual value of the reductions to the current year's bottom line is more like $790,000, according to Superintendent Connie Hubbard, based on estimates of what the step and column salary increases would have been for that personnel had the cuts not been made.

Hubbard indicated some administrative staffing could be added back in order to make up for the retirement of Brooke Zimmerman, who had headed the high school Wellness Center full-time. She said some library support services may also be replaced with the help of parent club funds in order to keep the middle school library open during lunch.