The School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) voted to cut $4 million in Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) positions and give administrators a 1.3% retroactive raise after much deliberation over how to address the district’s suffering budget.  

ACPS interim superintendent Kamela Patton prefaced the five-hour regular meeting’s action items on Tuesday with a reminder that the SBAC’s projected $15 million general fund deficit, discussed at a district workshop in March and then voted on in an April meeting, had since grown to $20 million.  

She warned the board that approving the personnel cuts and not approving the raises would leave staff with more work to cover for less pay.  

“Twenty million dollars is an enormous issue; it’s up to the five of you,” Patton said. “These are very hard decisions…times are harder, not easier, for administrators.” 

The 1.3% administrative raises for principals, assistant principals and all ACPS administration passed with a 3-2 vote and will be retroactive to July 1, 2024. Board Chair Sarah Rockwell and Board Member Thomas Vu voted in dissent. 

Vu said the issue is a matter of shared sacrifice, and that if the board is going to ask district personnel at the school level to make sacrifices, then administrators need to make the same ones. 

“They are the highest paid folks in this district,” Vu said. “We have to do something to stop this idea that we’re constantly doing to our teachers and our staff at our schools, is again asking them to give things up. So I will be voting against this.” 

Rockwell said she would’ve voted for the raises if assistant principals could’ve been separated from the decision, since those administrators will be taking an additional hit moving to an 11-month schedule.  

But because of the $20 million deficit and other future funding uncertainties for the budget, she said she’s left with making hard votes nobody wants to in order to keep from losing local district control to the state.  

“If I don’t get reelected because of some of these decisions, so be it,” she said. “So long as I have right-sized our district’s budget and set our students up to have locally controlled, effective public schools, I will be happy with what I have done.”   

The board then voted 4-1 to approve the 2025-26 Staffing Allocations Manual, with Vu again in dissent. The manual includes updates such as hours for each position and a 236-day calendar draft for positions reduced from 252 days.  

Although the allocations eliminate over 50 positions, district staff said the goal of the calendar is to cut expenditures and save as many employees as they can.  

One resident said a better solution would be to cut the hours per day for some positions instead of eliminating them altogether. Another said that the problem with 236-day calendars isn’t less work, it’s which months are used for unpaid time. 

“June or July should be the unpaid time,” she said. “It’s a sneaky or creative way to get the same amount of work for less money. The staff proposing this wants their cake, and they’re eating it too.” 

After a suggestion in public comment for the district to post the positions being eliminated and their salaries, Rockwell suggested to Patton that a list be provided for the sake of transparency. 

Board Member Tina Certain said the cuts are “course correction” for spending decisions made with more funding years ago, but are no longer sustainable. She said she didn’t see another way around the cuts if they wanted to right the past wrongs. 

“Those changes were made at that time because we had that influx of federal funding. They weren’t intended to be permanent,” she said. “While the change is there and it’s a shock, and it is an impact on our staffing, I don’t understand how we’re going to [do this] if we don’t start to reduce and do some things like this.” 

Even with the budget concerns, the entire board agreed to continue the district’s Citizens Field partnership with the city of Gainesville. A motion to draft a letter of intent for ACPS to pursue the possibility of owning and renovating the facility passed 5-0 following the city’s request for one during a regular commission meeting last week. 

Patton reiterated that renovations would only be done with capital funds and not general funds reserved for school resources, like teacher salaries, but that capital funds can only be used if the district owns the facility. 

Rockwell advocated for keeping sports, “The district’s No. 1 dropout prevention program,” in the budget and said that continuing to share Citizens Field between Gainesville High School, Buchholz High School and Eastside High School would be the most viable option financially and practically for the district. 

“The city wants to redevelop the Eighth and Waldo Complex. They have budgetary constraints and we have budgetary constraints, so neither of us is really in a position to do everything by ourselves,” she said. “But the hope is that by developing a partnership where we redevelop the stadium piece and they redevelop the rest of that larger facility, and perhaps we can do some cost sharing on parking and storm water management, we can do something that is most affordable for us as the school district and also helps our entire community.” 

Staff also reported at Tuesday’s meeting that the district received a clean audit for the 2023-24 fiscal year and is actively addressing federal grant compliance weaknesses related to the Davis-Bacon Act, and the board approved a contract with education tech company Apptegy for a new district app aiming to improve staff and parent communication. 

The board also voted 4-1, with Vu in dissent, to advertise a public hearing for amendments to the behavioral resource teacher job description and adding an instructional position of a behavioral resource coach that would support staff with behavioral guidance. 

Amendments to various policies, such as time allotted for public comment during SBAC meetings, will also be readdressed at the public hearing on June 3, with second readings at the July 31 board meeting.