Boston Area News

SALEM (WBZ) ― Salem laid off a total of 79 full time school employees, including 29 teachers Friday in an effort to close a near $5 million budget deficit.

The layoffs include 13 elementary school teachers, seven middle school teachers and nine high school teachers.

The cuts happened because the school district thought it had a budget surplus when in fact it is $4.7 million in the hole.

Although the names of the teachers affected have not been publicly released yet, Kerrie Smith said she is certain her daughter's second grade teacher is one of them.

"It's unfortunate for these little kids who really trust their teacher and value their teacher," Smith said.

Teachers learned their fate Friday while para-professionals and other school employees will get the bad news on Monday.

"It's disturbing. It's very difficult for people who are getting this news, and it's not easy to give it to them either," said Superintendent William Cameron.

The cuts run deep at Bates Elementary where three classroom teachers, 2 staff members and 3 para-professionals have been laid off.

Before the layoffs at Bates Elementary classroom sizes were around 18 students. That number will now rise to as many as 25 students per class.

Salem Mayor Kimberley Driscoll blames Bruce Guy, the former school business manager, for the budget discrepancy.

"There were weaknesses that were exploited but that pales in comparison to the actions of this individual like overriding our system, concealing audits, doing things that were pretty devious," Driscoll said.

Driscoll said Guy told the school board and the city council that the district had a surplus when actually he had put them in a $4.7 million deficit.

"It's something we are struggling with," Driscoll said.

The cuts will likely mean larger class sizes and cuts to programs like art, music and sports.

Principals will have their work cut out for them with the cuts coming in the middle of the school year. In many cases they now have to re-work class lists and schedules for both students and teachers.

Teachers have worked to make sure that despite the cuts class sizes will not exceed contractual limits of 28 students per class for kindergarten through fifth grade, and 30 students for the middle and high school classes.

"My sense is we will begin to climb out of this barrel at the end of this fiscal year as we head into next year," Driscoll said.

Calls to Bruce Guy went unanswered Thursday night.

At the end of the month Driscoll says the new audit will be done, and she is turning the results over to police to see if civil charges or even criminal charges will be filed against Guy.

District officials said they don't believe Guy stole money but that it was a case of an accountant only giving the district good news and hiding or deceiving the council and board about the bad news.

Driscoll said she hopes when all is said and done the proposed cuts may not be as deep and the city could save some of the jobs.

Salem faced similar problems because of a budget deficit just two years ago.

In 2006, nearly 40 teachers, counselors, aides and custodians were laid off and the hours of a bunch of other staff members were cut in order save $1 million. Then they were facing a $3.5 million budget deficit.

The teachers' last day of work will be Jan. 25 and the layoffs will officially take effect on Jan. 28.

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