HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra has ordered a hiring freeze for all non-teaching positions:
HISD’s budget has been cut more than $100 million in the past four years.
Dr. Saavedra’s order requires Texas’ largest school district to freeze hiring for all administrative, support, technical and other positions.
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HISD and other Texas school districts sued the state over the school finance system and won a judgment declaring the Texas system of finance unconstitutional. School districts are urging the Legislature to take action to replace the old finance system with a new one that is equitable and increases funding for schools.
The next fiscal year won’t begin until July 1, but HISD already is making plans for millions of dollars in additional cuts as it awaits action from the Legislature. Dr. Saavedra said he ordered the hiring freeze to stop any additional non-teacher hiring at a time when the district is planning to eliminate more jobs. The hiring freeze can only be lifted for a critical situation and only by the order of Dr. Saavedra.
“It wouldn’t be right for us to hire new people right now when we are probably going to have to eliminate jobs again this year,” Dr. Saavedra said. “That isn’t fair to our employees, and it doesn’t make good business sense.”
HISD, America’s seventh largest school district, has about 30,000 full and part-time employees. HISD’s budget has been cut from $1.4 billion in 2001 to $1.3 billion this year. The district has eliminated more than 500 jobs in the central administration in the last two years alone. For the most part, school budgets have not been cut.
In any large school district — and HISD is a big one — there are plenty of people who can be moved around, to fill needs. With that many schools, there are undoubtedly many jobs that are redundant and could be consolidated, even if only temporarily. But it would be nice to see HISD take this opportunity to become leaner, in some administrative and support areas.
