K-12 Job Losses Could Top 5,000 if Federal Stimulus Funds Rejected, State Survey Says

CHARLESTON, SC – April 2, 2009 – A survey of South Carolina school districts indicates that more than 5,000 jobs would be eliminated next year due to budget cuts, although more than half could be saved if federal stimulus funds are accepted by Governor Mark Sanford.

State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex today urged Sanford to accept the federal stabilization dollars approved by Congress.

“Make no mistake, these federal dollars are going to be spent somewhere,” Rex said.  “If our governor says no – if this money isn’t used to help our own kids – then it will go to other states, and South Carolina taxpayers will be on the hook for federal dollars that save teachers’ jobs in Idaho and Oklahoma.  That’s not some abstract philosophy of macroeconomics.  That’s reality.

“What kind of message do we send to the rest of nation, not to mention to our own kids, if South Carolina becomes the only state to refuse funds aimed at helping public schools?”

Based on responses from two-thirds of the state’s 86 school districts, the South Carolina Department of Education projected today that districts will eliminate 5,200 jobs in next year’s budgets, including 2,700 teachers.  If Sanford decides by Friday to accept federal stabilization funds targeted at public schools, districts would approve budgets that eliminate only 1,600 jobs. 

“With or without federal stimulus dollars, schools are going to lose jobs,” Rex said.  “The only question is how much we can cushion the blow.”

The survey results were released one day after the U.S. Department of Education published guidelines that rule out the possibility of states using federal stabilization funds to reduce state debts, a strategy advocated by Sanford.  The federal agency said “the paying down of past debt or the paying of interest or other obligations on past debt does not constitute the use of funds for ‘government services’ under the plain meaning of those words” in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Rex said there were issues with Sanford’s possible refusal that go beyond the immediate availability of federal stabilization funds.  Billions of additional dollars will be made available to states for innovative K-12 programs, and most of those funds require state governors to take key roles in applying for them.

“We have a team at the State Department of Education that has been looking into all sorts of possibilities for these competitive grants, everything from expanding instructional choices at schools to developing a performance pay program for classroom teachers.  We’re still hoping that Gov. Sanford will work with us.”

South Carolina schools have absorbed $387 million in cuts this year, and absorbing those midyear reductions has left many districts with few alternatives except to consider cuts to their most important assets – their classroom teaching positions.  Eighty to 90 percent of a typical school district’s budget is salaries, with most of those salaries going to classroom teachers. 

Rex said that eliminating several thousand teaching positions would be a disaster for South Carolina, but federal stimulus dollars could forestall that possibility and give the state’s economy a chance to recover.  And he continued to stress the importance of local school districts using federal stimulus funds wisely and making certain that taxpayers know how they are being spent.  “We have to make certain that we account for how these funds are used,” he said.

Support for accepting the stimulus funds is widespread and bipartisan, Rex said.  Republican legislators in the General Assembly have taken a lead role in advocating their use, and more than 80 mayors recently wrote a public letter to Sanford and legislators in which they urged acceptance of stimulus funds to “protect the vital services our state and local governments provide to our citizens.”

Background information

• Projection methodology – A number of school districts have not responded yet to the survey.  Some are on spring break this week, and others are not far enough along in their budget development processes to make decisions on eliminating positions.  So we compiled job loss totals from the responding districts, then used the total number of students in those responding districts to extrapolate and project statewide job losses.   

• K-12 state funding overview – The vast majority of state K-12 funds (96 percent) flows through the Education Department directly to local school districts.  Of the remaining 4 percent, 2.2 percent pays for school bus transportation and instructional materials and 1.8 percent pays for the Education Department’s Columbia-based administrative offices.