MPS’ proposed position cuts not necessarily people cuts

(The Center Square) – Milwaukee Public Schools are proposing a new budget that would cut nearly 300 positions and spend hundreds of millions of dollars less.

MPS’s superintendent unveiled his budget for the 2024-2025 school year recently.

“This budget positions MPS for long-term success. We are maximizing resources to enhance student achievement; providing more direct support to schools through increased per-pupil funding; reorganizing district offices to place more staff in schools; and reducing spending to close a budget gap,” Superintendent Keith Posley said in a statement.

The proposed 288 position cuts are getting most of the headlines.

Nearly half of those positions are teaching positions. The others include:

● 44 educational assistants

● 27 food service assistants and eight food service managers

● 27 administrators

● 13 school nurses and nine health assistants

● 11 clerical and secretarial workers

● nine social workers and three psychologists

But those announced cuts are for positions, not necessarily people.

Posley said some of those 288 positions are already vacant, and he added that anyone who loses their job will be allowed to apply for another job inside the district.

And Quinton Klabon, an education expert with the Institute for Reforming Government, said MPS has a habit of proposing things that don’t actually come to fruition.

“[The current] 2024 budget bore no spending or staffing resemblance to what actually occurred,” Klabon wrote in his budget analysis.

While Klabon said the proposed MPS budget would spend just more than $200 million less, he said teachers are in- ine for a rather large raise.

“[The number of] teachers slashed, despite 8-figure real increases in salary/benefit spending,” Klabon added on social media.

Per-student spending is also up in the new budget.

“[MPS is proposing] $22,279 per student at 66,000 students,” Klabon wrote. “[MPS will be] likely 17th nationally in spending of the 200 biggest districts.”

The position cuts come after voters approved a $252 million referendum in early April.

At the time, Posley said MPS needed that tax increase in order to avoid deep cuts to both teachers and classroom programs.

Posley’s budget next heads for MPS’ Budget Committee. That committee meets May 7. There will be a public hearing on the budget May 14, and a final vote could come as early as May 30.