Dr. Morgan's scalpel is dull

A scratch is not a cut

Dr. Morgan and the CMSD school board said that they would be bold and make sure the first cuts were deep and from the central office. At first, they said the cuts would be an impressive 10% but when they finally voted on the budget, they had gone even deeper and cut 12.6% of the central office salaries. The cuts would come from active positions, effective May 24, 2024, as well as unfilled positions. Dr. Morgan seemed proud of the cuts when he announced them at the May 21st school board meeting.

Maybe too proud. Because there was just something in the way Dr. Morgan spoke of the 12.6% and the way the local media parroted the number, that made me turn, once again, to the public records request. I asked for a list of all positions active and unfilled that were being cut, their salaries, and the effective cut date. Last month I had requested the salaries of all central office positions, all 467 of them. Yes, 467 positions crucial to the running of Cleveland schools even though none of them directly teach a student to read or do math or feed them or protect them or transport them. I figured I would compare the two spreadsheets and see just how deep the cuts actually were.

Administrators Get More

From the numbers given to me, the total salaries for the CMSD central office, people who do not work directly in any classroom, and do not teach, is a whopping $32,188,710.35. Dr. Morgan’s base salary is $285,000 (with amazing additional benefits). The Senior Chief of District Operations makes $216,176.00. The Senior Chief of Equity & Culture makes $210,000.00. The Chief Academic Officer makes $202,000.00. These are the four positions that make a base salary over $200,000.

There are 77 people who make salaries over $100,000. This includes Dr. Morgan’s Chief of Staff who, at $193,000, makes more than a White House COS. The Chief of External Affairs makes $193,500. The Chief Information Officer makes $191,000. The Chief Legal Counsel manages to make ends meet at $189,500. The person in charge of Talent & Human Resources makes $175,000. The Executive Director Say Yes (CMSD) Partnerships and Wraparound Prevention Programs and Services makes $148,352. Then there are another 71 other positions from Network Leaders to Director to a Student Services Officer, who work for base salaries over $100,000.

I requested public records from Columbus City Schools, for their top 10 salaries. Added together, the Columbus top 10 make $1,734,768, serving 46,000 students. Compare that to Cleveland’s top ten salaries costing the taxpayers $2,004,028 to serve just 36,000 students. Neither district is cloaked in glory.

About those cuts

To get to the 12.6% in cuts, Dr. Morgan and the school board cut 63 positions. Let me say, with all honesty, the people who have lost their jobs today aren’t a punchline or a gotcha to me. I hope they quickly turn around into new positions and don’t face too much financial hardship from this job loss. There is some solace in that of the 63 positions cut by CMSD, only 24 were active positions. The rest are currently unfilled and will not be filled. Only one of the active cuts was of an administrator making over $100,000. The Executive Director of Data & Organizational Accountability made $154,534 until today and was not given any severance pay.

Of the $32,188,710.35 that is central office pay, CMSD claims to have made huge cuts that total $3,841,651.20 but… That is only if you add together the active and the unfilled. Of the active positions eliminated, we are only saving $1,521,499.25 from these deep cuts. Doesn’t seem like much to be proud about for Dr. Morgan or the school board. The active positions cut is just 4.7% of central office staffing expenditures.

Who did we lose?

Out of the 467 positions that constitute central office staffing, Dr. Morgan has decided, boldly, that CMSD doesn’t need a Director of Speech Language & Communications Services ($86,190) and we are definitely not filling the open position of Program Manager Special Education Vision & Deaf Services ($66,402). We are going to have to do without the Manager of School Quality Reviewer ($71,017) and not even going to fill the position of Executive Director Internal Audit ($96,390). We are parting ways with the Manager of Student Assignments ($84,711) and not filling the position of Director Psychological Services ($66,402).

I was particularly saddened to see that the copywriter whose name appeared in some of the script related Eclipse-gate emails has also lost her $50,000 job. I was not at all surprised to see that none of the people collectively making a half a million dollars in the communications department received a pink slip. Clearly these cuts were not performance based.

About that levy

Mayor Justin Bibb and Dr. Morgan are determined to pass a 10 year 8.6 mill property tax increase in addition to a $295 million bond issue. The president of the school board, Sara Elaqad, says that passing a levy is a direct investment in the future of Cleveland students. By the looks of what the district is willing to cut when the going gets tough, I’d have to say that passing the levy is just more investment in turgid central office staff too far removed from the scholars they claim to serve.