Lynn to shelve school layoffs

LYNN – The 120-plus school department employees who received layoff notices last month should expect to have those notices rescinded within the next two weeks, Superintendent Catherine Latham said Tuesday.Latham is working with the school law department this week to produce rescind notices for every employee facing layoffs and says she hopes to have a principals meeting – possibly as soon as Thursday – where she will pass those notices off to be hand-delivered to employees.Due to a cut in the state budget that trickled down to individual cities and towns, the Lynn Public Schools faced a $1 million cut in the fiscal year 2009 budget heading into February. While administrators were able to cut that number in half with non-salary reductions, the remaining $500,000 was made up through staff layoffs throughout the department.In an effort to reverse those layoffs, the Lynn Teachers Union voted to work one day without pay to make up the deficit, and administrators, clerks and independent workers quickly followed the union’s lead, agreeing to do the same.With a 6-1 vote by the School Committee Feb. 17, the unpaid work day was approved, effectively reversing all of the layoffs.Latham and her staff have a strict time line to pass out the notices, which were given to employees Feb. 12, as the layoffs were scheduled to go into effect March 16 if the city’s unions did not agree to work one day without pay to fill the gap in the budget.”The rescind letters should go out this week, we are trying to get them printed out now for me to sign,” said Latham. “I’m not sure exactly when they will go out, but it has to be soon because the date they go into effect was the 16th, and that is (just under two weeks) away.”Latham said the fiscal year 2009 budget is now in order for the fourth quarter and she is prepared to begin working with City Hall administrators and her own staff on the fiscal year 2010 budget.