NYT: Given Money for Rehiring ($10 billion), Schools Wait and See

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Given Money for Rehiring, Schools Wait and See



Joelle Beck, laid off from her teaching job in O’Fallon, Ill., was hired at half the salary to run an in-school suspension program.

By MOTOKO RICH
Published: August 17, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/business/economy/18teachers.html?_r=1&hp

As schools handed out pink slips to teachers this spring, states made a beeline to Washington to plead for money for their ravaged education budgets. But now that the federal government has come through with $10 billion, some of the nation’s biggest school districts are balking at using their share of the money to hire teachers right away.

With the economic outlook weakening, they argue that big deficits are looming for the next academic year and that they need to preserve the funds to prevent future layoffs. Los Angeles, for example, is projecting a $280 million budget shortfall next year that could threaten more jobs.

“You’ve got this herculean task to deal with next year’s deficit,” said Lydia L. Ramos, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest after New York City.

“So if there’s a way that you can lessen the blow for next year,” she said, “we feel like it would be responsible to try to do that.”