Newport schools officials say they are seeking clarity on the district’s financial standing before making any tough decisions about potential staff cuts.
The Newport Board of Education met in a work session on March 12 to discuss the district’s departments and staff within the departments. While board members say Newport Schools needs to reanalyze its budget before determining staff cuts, they wanted to get further clarification on district positions.
Newport Board of Education Chair Ramona Malone said the district is waiting on a budget update from Tete Turner. At a special meeting on March 6, the board approved an independent contract for Turner to provide professional finance services to the board. Turner was the district’s finance director before Jennifer Hoover, who recently left the role.
Malone said the budget prepared in October was a draft budget. Since it has been a few months, she said they wanted an update on their revenue and spending. She said that when the draft budget was prepared last year, quite a few cuts had already been made.
“We want to get an updated budget before we start talking about removing or eliminating positions, but we still needed to educate ourselves on all the roles and responsibilities because many of you in the district do more than one duty,” Malone said.
The school board conversation comes after the board approved 21 tentative teacher allocations at a Feb. 26 regular meeting. The talk about teacher and staff cuts comes after a $3.9 million budget deficit that Hoover said the school district faces for the 2026 school year during a Jan. 22 regular meeting.
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People filled the meeting room in black to support Newport teachers. There was no public comment because it was a work session and not a regular meeting.
A tentative budget is expected to be presented at a school board meeting in May. If school staff’s contracts aren’t renewed, they must be notified by May 15.
“We just want you guys to know we’re not looking to start cutting and going crazy,” Newport Board of Education Member Tim Curl said. “We need more information.”
Newport Superintendent Tony Watts, who attended Wednesday’s meeting virtually, said he asked his cabinet and principals to attend the meeting to answer any questions.
When discussing Newport’s bussing and transportation, school board member Bobbie Stubbeman asked about possibly eliminating their partnership with The Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky, also known as TANK, and rolling the high school back to an earlier start time. The partnership, formed in 2018, provides transportation to the district’s middle and high school students.
Newport Schools Director of Facilities Dennis Maines said he had suggestions on that and thought there could be potential savings, but he didn’t want to discuss it in an open forum.
“I don’t think this is the appropriate forum for that because it gets into very detailed information about what we need to do as a district, and I think there is a possibility that we could have some savings by eliminating TANK,” Maines said. “But again, I don’t want to speak in an open forum like this in terms of the detail that goes into that.”
Watts said they have discussed that partnership and if it benefits the district.
Stubbeman also asked Chief Academic Officer Darla Payne if other districts of similar size had the same number of people in their curriculum department. The curriculum department is part of Watts’ cabinet.
Payne said other districts of similar size have more. When she first came to the department, she said there were four people, and now they have two. Payne said her role was combined with that of the director of curriculum.
During the meeting, Stubbeman also questioned Director of Districtwide Services Katina Brown, asking if her role could be combined with Payne’s.
“Do you do the same things?” Stubbeman said. “Because it kind of sounds like you do.”
Brown said a lot of her roles include gifted and talented coordinator, recruitment and retention program coordinator, professional development coordinator. She is also the liaison between universities and colleges for teacher placement and meets with Newport’s teachers often.
Brown and Payne said their roles could not be combined. Payne said her services are more curriculum and instructional-based, and Browns were more support services.
“We’re dedicated to the schools, and we will make this work,” Newport Board of Education Member Ed Davis said. “We’re going to look at every possible thing that we can if there are cuts to be made; we will look at every possible cut to be made if there’s efficiency to be had. We’re going to look at every possible way to be as efficient as possible because when this comes down to it, we have to serve our students, and that’s our product, and that’s what we need to do.”
Watts said that though tonight wasn’t the night to discuss specific cuts, they are looking at everything and will bring recommendations to the board at a later date.
