The Nashville City Paper has a story today on Metro’s reduction in funding of community education programs. Vital programs like Nashville Adult Literacy Council, among others, could be in danger. NewsChannel 5 did a story last month on the importance of NALC. Click here to view the report and visit NALC’s Web site for volunteer information. 

Adult literacy cuts spur confusion, efforts to make amends
Nate Rau and Amy Griffith Graydon
Posted: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:00 am

Metro leaders are scrambling to rescue the Community Education program, which because of forthcoming layoffs has left initiatives like adult literacy and senior citizens activities in serious jeopardy.

They’re also trying to sort out precisely what happened. Confusion around the layoffs has highlighted a funding and management structure for the program that some officials say was inherently doomed.

Metro Council has scheduled a special joint meeting of the budget and finance and education committees for 4:30 p.m. on Thursday to discuss the issue. And members of Nashville’s Board of Education are awaiting a report on the issue from new Director of Schools Jesse Register.

“[There's] a built-in lack of success in how this whole thing is structured,” said David Fox, school board chair, on Monday. “This organizational structure is not fixable, and has to be recreated. … I can assure you going forward that when these services are reconstituted, all that confusion will be averted.”

The Community Education program is subsidized for just under $600,000 a year by Metro, but it is also a revenue-generating department. Besides the Metro subsidy, the program is operated at Cohn School and receives staff from Metro Nashville Public Schools. Both government arms are involved in program funding and decision-making.

The adult literacy program teaches 1,300 people a year how to read and write, while also running English as Second Language courses. The senior citizens programs offer healthy living classes and arts and crafts activities to seniors.

Last week, seven Community Education employees were notified that they were being laid off due to an anticipated budget shortfall.

According to Fox, the program has been running an average deficit of $1,300 each day. School district officials attribute the shortfall to a lack of class enrollees.

About 40 Community Education classes are set to begin this week at Cohn School, where the programs are housed. Those classes will take place as scheduled, and will be staffed by other employees of Metro Nashville Public Schools, according to district spokesperson Noelle Mashburn.

There was some confusion Monday as to who ultimately made the decision to give layoff notices to the seven workers. Metro Director of Finance Richard Riebeling said he was still fielding questions from Council members and wouldn’t be in a position to give formal answers until Tuesday.

Riebeling said the finance department relayed revenue shortfalls in the enterprise fund, which backs Community Education, and that Metro Finance was simply the “messenger” of the shortfall problem.

“Everybody likes to pass the blame to Finance, but we didn’t collect the revenue and we didn’t make the decision. The choice was either get more money or lay people off,” Riebeling said. “All we did was tell them there was a deficit.”

The school district’s Fox said MNPS administrators were told by Metro employees that money could not be pulled from the district’s reserve funds to make up for the shortfall. The letter notifying employees of the layoffs was drafted by Metro and printed on Metro letterhead, Fox said, and given to an MNPS employee to sign.

“We didn’t independently come up with the decision to do this,” Fox said. “I can’t imagine anything with a less-coherent structure, a non-structure, than this program. … The end result needs to be, there has to be absolutely clear sources of funding and authority and responsibility here.”

Fox said he is “confident” the program will be reconstituted in the coming months. He has been told by MNPS’s head of federal programming that city and school leaders want to have a new plan for the program by May. The intent is for that plan to “create opportunity” for the employees who have been laid off.

That may not be soon enough for those concerned about the program’s immediate future. The Nashville Adult Literacy Council has passed a resolution asking that the job of Meg Nugent, director of the adult literacy program, be kept safe. Metro Council members and city leaders want to investigate immediate measures for saving the program. Some school board members have also voiced concerns about the ramifications of the program closing.

The program’s director, Jim Polk, said he was grateful for the leaders rallying around Community Education.

“That is fabulous, it’s tremendous,” Polk said. “I’ve been with the program for 25 years, so for me personally this is a huge impact to think about this going away.”

Riebeling said one scenario Council members were researching was whether an emergency appropriation was in order to save the program.

“There are a lot of inquiries from the Council as to why this is and what happened,” Riebeling said. “So I intend to get as many facts as I can and give Council a memo and brief them on whatever they want to know.”

WPLN did a story this morning on Meg Nugent and how the loss of her position will impact the program.