East Baton Rouge Parish School System Sends WARN Notices to All Workers

It looks some bad news is coming to the all of the workers of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system. Earlier in this week the school system made an interesting move. They chose to send out WARN notices to every one of their workers. The 6000 plus people who are employed by the East Baton Rouge Parish school system were warned that they could be slated for layoff in the very near future.

At the current moment we do not know how many of them are actually going to be give layoff notices, since literally everyone got a notice it is extremely unlikely that it will be 100% or even 50% of the listed jobs. After all a WARN notice is not even a pink slip. For those of you not familiar with the idea of a WARN notice here is a look at the official detention of the US government, who requires these notices:

“WARN offers protection to workers, their families and communities by requiring employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of covered plant closings and covered mass layoffs. This notice must be provided to either affected workers or their representatives (e.g., a labor union); to the State dislocated worker unit; and to the appropriate unit of local government.”

The notices were given out at part of a general reduction in force plan for the schools, which will have to make a significant number of budget cuts in order to  balance its budget for the coming school year. 6,250  workers for the schools, including educators, were given notices, though at the current moment the school is not sure exactly which positions it wants to cut. They are hoping, that with the help of state aid and creative cuts in other areas that they will not have to layoff anyone at all.

One of the biggest problems for the school system right now is that they do not know how much money they will need to cut, at least not until they know how much in funds they will be receiving from the state. Once that is clear, after the state budget is apportioned, the decisions will be much easier to make. If however, this year is like last year there will not be good news coming. In the budget for the last school year the schools had to deal with a shortfall of about $34 million, which leads one to wonder how much longer they can keep making cuts before they will be out of options. After all, school districts do have certain legal obligations to meet.

While several members of the school board have stated that they do not wish to cut classroom jobs that option is still being explored. While the school may attempt some of the creative maneuvers of other districts such as outsourcing custodial staff, increasing class sizes, cutting back on special programs and removing bussing one has to wonder what they have not considered in the cuts. Many things, such as high school football are costly in both equipment and liability insurance. It’s an area worth considering.