Bracing for jobless impacts
Losses at schools will hurt learning and the economies they serve in region
The massive job losses at two of the Capital Region’s largest school districts are already beginning to have a ripple effect in the region.
Saying goodbye to teachers, social workers, administrative staff and building workers does not just come with a devastating loss to students’ education, but also with cascading effects on the economies these schools play a large part in.
“People who are even just fearful of losing their job are going to be spending less,” Adrian Masters, an economist at the University of Albany, said. “So the fact that these kinds of layoffs are likely going to happen is going to create a chilling effect on local economies.”
In the Albany and Schenectady city school districts alone, almost 700 staff have been laid off in anticipation of a potential 20 percent aid cut from the state. Districts like the Hartford school district in Washington County are also considering massive cuts, while wealthier districts like the Saratoga Springs and East Greenbush school districts have not made any cuts yet.
Without federal aid and no word from the state about the status of a future cut to aid, staff layoffs mean less spending in the local economy today and may potentially jeopardize workforce opportunities for students in the future. Additionally, superintendents say a cut in aid could also lead to fewer construction jobs because schools are not taking on as many renovation projects, and there’s a possibility taxpayers could end up paying more for these jobs later.
The state Division of Budget
has never indicated if expensebased aid, which includes building aid and transportation aid, will be subject to any reductions. Freeman Klopott, a spokesman for the office, said there will be no impact on school construction this school year and any claim that there will be is untrue and alarmist. He pointed out that only 0.5 percent of aid has been withheld thus far.
For workers, double worries
Akira Marshall was the bridge between home and school for students at Albany’s Montessori Magnet School before the district laid her off. Her days used to start with delivering lunches to families who couldn’t afford
them in the morning, and in the afternoon, she would visit the homes of children who weren’t showing up to virtual learning.
“I come, and mom would be under the assumption that work is done, and I get in there and say ‘no, no its not,’” Marshall said. “This is how you look it up. All of this in red that says ‘missing’ has not been done.”
The Albany school district has laid off six home school coordinators, and while the responsibilities of a coordinator will be shifted to other staff, the bonds that formed between coordinator and students will vanish.
Marshall is mourning the loss of a job she believes is vital to keeping students in virtual school, but she also has to worry about supporting her own family. As a single parent, she has to now go back to what she calls “survival mode,” working multiple parttime jobs while still caring for her seventh-grade daughter who is learning at home. Her biggest worry is her loss of health care.
Jobs like Marshall’s are union jobs that come with retirement, health benefits, and training opportunities, said Vivian Benton, deputy director of the Workforce Development Institute. “It’s not just the loss of any job, it’s actually a loss of a really good job with a good career possibility,” Benton said. “It’s not that simple to just go find something new when there’s a lot of people out there looking for employment.”
Seeking opportunities
There are only 117 postings for education, training and library jobs for 941 unemployed people from these occupations in the Albany-schenectady-troy area, Workforce Development Institute data shows.
Still, there are companies hiring right now, according to Capital Region Chamber of Commerce President Mark Eagan. Eagan believes administrative staff and custodial staff are going to have an easier time finding jobs at a different company than a teacher, and if they land fulltime jobs, they should be able to get health care.
“The issue is the retirement system that they would be losing,” Eagan said. He hopes workers would be hired back and get their retirement back. However, these cuts could last for two budget cycles or more, leaving newly laid off workers either without health care or uncertain retirement status for a while.
That’s the case for Violetta DeRosa, a teaching assistant in the special education department at Albany’s Montessori Magnet School, whose last day of work was Friday. Her job carried her family’s health care, so when the end of the month comes, she’ll be paying for COBRA (a health insurance coverage guarantee) at about $2,000 a month.
“I know my unemployment benefits will cover a lot of that but what that also means is that any extra niceties we would have made patronizing restaurants and businesses will not be happening because we have to pay for COBRA,” Derosa said.
Construction delays a risk
The 40 or so Capital Region school districts and BOCES employ thousands of people and do business with countless vendors.
For one example, Schenectady schools face a potential $28.5 million dollar shortfall. Taking that money out of the economy by laying off staff is not a huge amount of money, but it is “nontrivial,” Ben Griffy, an economist at Ualbany, said. “It’s about four tenths of a percent of the overall income in the county. So that’s actually pretty sizable.”
Meanwhile, a state building aid cut could lead to more staff cuts to pay for projects completed years ago, and fewer jobs for the construction industry as projects are put off.
Superintendents are waiting for word about building aid. Albany’s school district fears losing $2.4 million in such aid.
“If we do lose that money, we are still obligated to pay those bills,” district spokesman Ron Lesko said. The district would consider more staff cuts and more changes to programs to
come up with the money.
The projects are a significant economic driver, creating construction, architecture, plumbing, and electrician jobs.
The Hartford school district is scheduled to get $1.4 million in building aid from the state this year to pay for projects completed as far back as 2010. “Based on the information we have been provided, the debt service reimbursed to us is at risk of being reduced,” Superintendent Andrew Cook said. “We are looking at $1.4 million just in building aid, if we lose 20 percent of that that would be catastrophic for our district.”
Hartford was planning to renovate the roof of their gym and their middle and high school buildings but decided to hold off. “Those maintenance projects that we need to do to maintain a safe and orderly building get put off and become larger issues later on, and more expensive,” Cook said.
If the economic crisis related to COVID-19 continues, the Albany school district could be forced to look at scaling back the final phase of the high school building project, which includes enclosing the large open courtyard that has been cited as a significant safety concern and moving Career and Technical Education students from a building two blocks away into the main building.
The concern about building aid getting reduced comes up often, not just during a pandemic, said Dan Woodside, the president of Csarch, an architecture firm where 80 percent of their work is on school buildings. Though it is discussed, Woodside said building aid rarely actually gets reduced.
The other option the district might consider is more future tax increases. Most districts try hard not to do that, though it is a possibility, said Rick Timbs at Statewide School Finance Consortium, especially if no federal money comes.
“That is a future conversation and absolutely not something that we would take on without having that conversation with our community first,” Lesko from Albany schools said. “We understand the tax burden our community already is under.”