Hillsborough 2008 faced with difficult times...

Hillsborough County Schools have been faced with difficult times along with everyone else. Hillsborough County school leaders have planned for a budget cut of $26 million by the end of this year. The problem they are now faced with is that they may see an additional budget loss.

The school district may see an additional budget cut of $28.9 million that they were not expecting. Right now people are looking towards our governor and Legislation to come up with more funding to provide money for education and other services.

Hillsborough County Schools have already stopped hiring new teachers; they have cut other jobs, travel, supplies and bus routes. Even though there isn’t room for more cuts, the economy’s downfall hasn’t stopped; which means more cuts will have to be made.

In total for the Hillsborough County school year, they are expected to have a pay cut around $54.9 million. The budget cuts still continue; there is an expected $30 million in cuts next school year, 2009-2010.

The budget cuts don’t stop at Hillsborough schools. Earlier this year, local media outlets have had to layoff employers. Back in June, Media General’s Tampa Tribune and WFLA-Ch. 8 planned to have involuntary layoffs of 21 positions in the newspaper’s editorial staff, and they also planned on a loss of 10 positions from the television station’s newsroom. Prior to the layoffs, Media General presented buyout offers to almost half of their employees in the Tampa Bay area.

Just last month, the Tampa Tribune had to layoff 18 newsroom employees. Top managers, mid-level editors, photographers, reporters, and some of the paper’s most visible faces lost their jobs. My opinion on this decision is that it came down to who would accept less pay. I don’t believe that the paper let go some of their best employers because of their performance, but rather made the decision based on what they could afford, and where they could save money. I hate to see what the economy has done to some of our Bay Area companies.

Families are taking the heat too. Although the morale of some employers have been affected, the hardest part for me to digest is to know that they can’t provide for their families in the same manner as before their job loss.

I believe Hillsborough County has fought the budget struggle as best as they could. I hate that people have lost their jobs, but our county can’t be responsible for the economy breakdown. Our upcoming generation of workers lay within our school’s hands, so I hope the budget cuts don’t begin taking away our much need teachers.