CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- After months of contentious debate over school closings and budget cuts, NAACP officials met with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders Tuesday to give them a proposal the group says could avert school closings and save hundreds of teachers' jobs.
But the plan, which centers on furloughs and normal workforce attrition, wouldn't save anywhere near what CMS has said it needs to fill an anticipated $100million budget gap next year.
Superintendent Peter Gorman and his top budget aides listened to the NAACP presentation. He emerged from the roughly one-hour, closed-door meeting to say he'd study what the group had presented.
We had a nice meeting. They had some thoughts and some information they asked us to look at.
NAACP President Rev. Kojo Nantambu, who has blasted CMS officials as racist in recent months, said Gorman and his staff listened politely, but didn't say anything.
At least they did listen, Nantambu told reporters. Hopefully and prayerfully, something good will come out of it.
The NAACP's proposal suggests CMS can save $14 million by imposing furloughs of up to 14 days on staff earning $40,000 or more. Administrators making more than $100,000 would be asked to take the maximum of 14 days off, while others would take fewer days.
The plan also calls for CMS to seek a $10 million grant from Mecklenburg County - proposed by Commissioner Vilma Leake - to help save the Bright Beginnings preschool program. Some $400,000 in savings from the furloughs would also go toward rescuing the program.
Nantambu said CMS could close its entire $100 million shortfall with pay cuts.
The school system employs more than 17,000 workers. CMS officials have said that, under state law, pay cuts for tenured teachers must be regarded as demotions, and that triggers a flood of required appeals and hearings.
To enact furloughs, they say, state rules would require them to end all bonuses to teachers, including Gorman's Strategic Staffing program, which pays strong educators more to take on challenging schools.
CMS officials say the program works, and they don't want to end it.
Nantambu said he has heard those arguments, but insisted CMS isn't pushing hard enough to find alternatives to closing campuses and laying off teachers.
The planned closings of 11 schools, many serving mostly black communities, sparked months of NAACP protests.
CMS can do anything they want to, Nantambu said. Something has to be done to make sure we can save jobs.
CMS has said it might have to lay off some 560 educators next year in order to balance the budget.
The NAACP said in its press release that its proposal could reduce that layoff figure by about half, as well as save the 11 schools targeted for closure.
