Was Monday’s announcements of massive nationwide layoffs the flash-flood warning of an economic tsunami heading our way?
School districts across the state are facing large budget cut that will force them to eliminate jobs. Home Depot, Sprint, Caterpillar and Pfizer are among the latest national companies to announce huge job losses.
I am hearing talk of layoffs in nearly every walk of life these days, including the elimination of a job that recently hit home. Clear Channel Radio announced on Jan. 20 it was laying off 1,850 employes across the country. One of them was my son, Joe, an advertising sales person in Jacksonville. He lost his job on the day Barack Obama was inaugurated and the same day that both radio talk show personalities David Lamm and Joe Cowart lost theirs. Read the rest of this entry »
Proposals to trim the Clay County, Fla., school budget for fiscal year 2009-2010 could cause wholesale disruption of both the educational and extracurricular programs in the district, including athletics.
Superintendent Ben Wortham presented School Board members and a room full of concerned educators a list of proposed cuts that would reduce expenses by more than $27 million in the coming school year.
Included in those proposals:
a saving of $11 million by eliminating up to 256 allocations district wide
This giant mastadon skeleton is on display in the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee.
I accompanied my wife on a job-related trip [for her] to Tallahassee last week. She was working with the State Department of Education on some new science standards for public school teachers.
While she worked, I played. Sort of. I got in one round of golf on Thursday after it had warmed up from a low of around 20 degrees and I visited the Museum of Florida History, which I will tell you more about in a few minutes.
The trip was also noteworthy for renewing acquaintances. My wife visited a friend from high school whom she had not seen in more than 40 years and I met a person I used to work with at the Times-Union, Jim Baltzelle, who is now Florida bureau chief for the Associated Press in Miami. Of course, there was a legislative update session in Tallahassee, so it was natural that journalists would be all over the place. My neighbor Mike Marino was also there visiting with the Times-Union’s new Tallahassee reporter. Read the rest of this entry »
I am sure that tongues were wagging at water coolers around many schools today, and rightfully so. Cuts are coming. Schools face the prospect of layoffs because of declining enrollments and cutbacks in funding from the state. Several counties have already begun closing underused schools.
As one superintendent said, “It may get uglier before it gets better.”
In Clay County, School Board members will be wrestling with a proposal to eliminate some 115 positions at a savings of $6.3 million for the 2009-2010 school year.
”We have no growth,” Superintendent Ben Wortham told board members at their regular meeting Thursday night. (Jan. 15) as he laid out a plan to reduce the district budget by $10.5 million due to a decline in state funding.
TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America .
MARIA: Here it is.
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America? Read the rest of this entry »
posted
Jan 27, 2009 by Lamar Thames
