The Mobile County Public School System has approved a cost-cutting plan aimed at saving roughly $5 million next year, including a system-wide freeze on overtime pay and dozens of long-vacant support staff positions.
The measures are part of a state-approved recovery plan designed to help the district rebuild a legally required reserve fund. Alabama law requires school systems to maintain operating reserves equal to at least one month of expenses — for Mobile County, that threshold sits at roughly $34.8 million. According to Chief Financial Officer Dinish Simpson, the district has not fully met that requirement in about a decade, though the gap has been narrowing. The shortfall stood at $7.6 million in 2013 and had improved to $5 million by this year.
When a school system falls short of its reserve requirement, state law requires it to develop a recovery plan in coordination with the Alabama Department of Education. That plan was approved by the state this spring, and the school board voted this week to implement it without changes.
The plan leans heavily on an existing energy-savings partnership with a Texas-based conservation company that has already recouped nearly $4 million in utility costs since being hired in 2014, with total projected savings approaching $60 million over time.
A new “No Overtime Policy” will apply to the district’s roughly 7,500 employees. Superintendent Martha Peek said most historical overtime spending — which has averaged more than $455,000 annually since 2009, peaking near $693,000 in 2013 — has come from the facilities department. She said the tighter policy would require some belt-tightening but should not affect the district’s day-to-day operations.
The plan also freezes 49 classified support-staff positions that have sat vacant for six months or longer, out of 124 total vacancies districtwide as of March. Those unfilled jobs represent more than $1.4 million in salary. Peek said the district may eventually eliminate some of those positions outright rather than simply leaving them open.
Administrators are also tightening how outside education service providers — currently budgeted for roughly $17 million in contracts this year — request funding, moving from an ad hoc, year-round request process to a defined approval window ahead of each fiscal year. Officials estimate that change alone could save up to $1 million annually.
The recovery plan additionally flags that roughly 72 percent of the district’s 90 schools are operating below capacity, with three schools at or under 25 percent capacity. Consolidating or closing even two of the most under-enrolled schools could save an estimated $1.6 million a year, according to the plan. Peek declined to identify which schools were flagged as severely under-populated and said, while closures remain a valid option on paper, she does not expect the board to pursue that step in the near term.
District officials say the combination of measures is intended to restore the reserve fund to its legal minimum without resorting to broader cuts to classroom instruction.