Tempers flaring as pink slips hit schools
Security rises with merger pain
A school-merger process that has been acrimonious, emotional and fitful will take on an economic dimension this week as hundreds of central office workers for Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools — with average pay packages of $85,000 — are let go.
“Between 225 and 250 people are going to lose their jobs,” interim Supt. Dorsey Hopson said Saturday. “It’s a significant layoff. From a humanistic standpoint, it bothers me. The emotional and economic toll this whole process is going to take concerns me.”
Offers will be made through Thursday. Workers not covered by collective bargaining agreements will be eligible for up to six weeks of pay, based on years of service, under the MCS severance agreement. The school board this winter voted to extend it to Shelby County Schools employees.
Staff no longer employed in the district will be paid through the end of June and will receive their last paychecks, including possible severance, July 5.
The cuts will save $18 million, $3.7
more than the 26 percent the Transition Planning Commission recommended come out of central office payroll.
Combined, the districts have about 650 central office staff members, including department heads but also secretaries, psychologists, receptionists, plumbers, electricians, grounds workers and security personnel.
Late Friday, Hopson alerted the school board that security had been stepped up around district offices on Avery, Hollywood and Gray’s Creek after switchboard operators logged numerous calls over the last two weeks of people using “disrespectful, aggressive and in some instances, profane tones.
“One employee specifically stated that if she lost her job ‘people would be sorry’ and that the ‘building would burn,’” Hopson told board members to heed the same advice security personnel have given him: “Be aware of your surroundings and do not engage with aggressive or angry members of the community.”
In addition to the emotional toll of the merger’s uncertainties, more than 1,000 workers — from outsourced custodians and bus drivers to teachers and administrators — will be displaced.
Last week, district staff said 900-plus teachers had been “excessed” due to changes in classroom staffing. While about a third have been placed in other schools, hundreds are still waiting to learn if there are jobs and where they will be.
“I think we have done a great job of covering the mistakes the district has made in the last few weeks,” said board mem- ber Kevin Woods. “If our community can do anything, it will be to get behind these employees who didn’t ask for this merger, who didn’t ask for its effect on their lives. I am encouraging everyone to support them and do our part to help them get back to work. These are our friends and neighbors.”
The central office paring has loomed for months like a hill in a marathon. There were two of almost every department, including transportation, food service and curriculum. Both systems had separate pay scales, based on their own market analyses and size.
And both had longtime experts heading the divisions whose departments reflected their management styles and sometimes differences in district philosophies. Merging included rewriting job descriptions, recalculating salaries and in the last five weeks, conducting some 2,000 interviews, largely of internal candidates.
“It was a herculean task; it’s probably something that under normal circumstances, with that many interviews with all the rest of the stuff going with building the budget and other merger-related tasks, could have taken four to five months,” Hopson said.
Up to 20 jobs were opened to the public, including information technology and human resources functions, “to get an array of talent,” Hopson said. “I know some of the IT positions were external hires. One reason is that FedEx had some top IT talent looking for employment and it was a great opportunity to see if we could tap into some of it.”
Although there have been rumors that Memphis City Schools staff got preferential treatment over their counterparts in Shelby County Schools, potentially because they headed larger departments and are more acquainted with services, including federal grants, a school board member said that isn’t true.
“I think the majority, and not small majority of 60 to 70 percent were let go from MCS,” said board member Chris Caldwell.
“I think every attempt was made to be transparent, to give people ample notice and to give them opportunity. I don’t know how you do it any better,” he said, adding that the district has made arrangements to support the displaced through services from the state Workforce Investment Network.
What compounds the stress is that many of the displaced have specialized skills. “There probably are other districts in the country that could use their skills, but who wants to pack up and move the whole family, especially if the spouse has a good job,” Caldwell said.
And many who are offered jobs may still be taking a pay cut. “If you got a job a couple of layers down, we weren’t going to allow you to keep the same salary,” Hopson said.
People getting promotions got a 10 percent raise.
The process will go on all week because not every one is expected to accept the offers. In that case, directors will go back to second and third choices or reopen the job for interviews.
“Just because someone is notified Monday, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a position,” Hopson said.
“We’ll be notifying 600 people between now and next Thursday, those who have jobs and those who don’t. We are sure going to have a lot of angst and lot of emotion in the next week.”