The current economic downturn is hitting Miami Trace Local Schools hard.
At the Miami Trace Board of Education meeting Monday, the board approved a resolution that would eliminate one position and reduce the hours or days worked annually for 38 other district positions.
"It is a cost-saving measure under phase one of our plan to make sure that we're being financially responsible and accountable," said Superintendent Dan Roberts. "It's a tough situation - I think we're hitting these people hard. It's not an easy thing for us to do. But as our financial situation becomes more positive, we might want to revisit it."
The resolution will also reduce the amount of hours worked per day from eight to seven for 12 employees; reduce the amount of days worked annually from 251 to 249 days for 11 employees; and reduce the amount of days worked annually from 255 days to 251 days for 13 employees. The resolution will also reduce the combined total hours worked weekly from 15 hours to 10 hours for two employees.
All changes are effective July 1, 2009.
According to Roberts, these cuts are a result of two factors - the current economy and Trace's declining enrollment, which was reported in-depth in the Record-Herald Monday.
On April 7, the board approved a comprehensive cost-cutting plan that would target five major areas in which to cut costs - curricular, classified personnel, administrative, athletics and operational.
In addition to cutting back staff employed and hours that the some remaining staff work, Miami Trace High School is raising the cost of playing a school sport to $50 per sport. This is an increase from the previous fee of $30 per sport.
In addition, there will no longer be a cap of two to the amount of sports that a students must paid for; under the new policy, students must pay $50 for each sport played.
"Ads published on this site are not for republication in print or web media without the expressed written consent of both the advertiser and The Brown Publishing Company."
