Lansing School District cuts 50 jobs
About 50 Lansing School District staffers had their jobs cut, to save about $10 million, in one of the first major decisions by Interim Superintendent Jessica Benavides.
The jobs cuts were …
Email sent to staff
Dear Lansing School District Team,
As we end the day, I want to take a moment to share the work that has been underway over the past several months and the difficult decisions we reached today.
ESSER funds provided critical, one-time support to help school districts navigate the challenges during and following the COVID period. These resources allowed us to strengthen systems, rebuild important structures, and bring in additional staff to better serve our students and schools. Now that these funds have ended and are no longer available, the district is faced with difficult decisions as we plan for a sustainable path forward while continuing to build on the progress we have made.
As those funds have expired, we are now facing a large structural deficit driven by the loss of one-time federal funding, reduced interest rate on investments, and rising operational costs, including utilities. This is not sustainable, and it requires us to take thoughtful and responsible action to ensure long-term financial stability for our district.
Our first step was to reduce non-personnel expenditures wherever possible. This included eliminating open departmental positions, consolidating programming, and halting a planned solar project.
Even with these reductions, additional steps were necessary. Next, we took a closer look at Central personnel. In order to align more closely with sustainable, pre-pandemic staffing levels, we reduced departmental staffing by more than 50 positions. This brought our projected use of fund balance down to approximately 10 million dollars. These reductions do not include the decisions made by school-based budgeting. School-based budgets have remained intact during this process.
These decisions were incredibly difficult. We have tremendously talented and dedicated staff members who are being laid off or displaced, of whom contributed meaningfully during a critical time for our district. While these steps were necessary, they are deeply felt. Every individual impacted was personally met with today, with the exception of a few individuals who were absent.
I ask each of you to extend care, compassion, and support to those affected. This is a moment where our strength as a community truly matters.
Our goal moving forward is to minimize the use of fund balance and ensure a stable financial future. This will take thoughtful planning over the course of the next school year as we continue to identify opportunities to right size our systems while keeping students at the center of every decision.
I remain deeply grateful for each of you and for your commitment to Lansing School District and the students we serve. Together, we will navigate this moment with the integrity and care.
My heart is with our staff members. Please know we will do everything in our power to support you. I am truly sorry this has happened.
Interim superintendent enters contract negiotiations with board
About 50 Lansing School District staffers had their jobs cut, to save about $10 million, in one of the first major decisions by Interim Superintendent Jessica Benavides.
The jobs cuts were announced in an email to employees, which points to a loss of federal pandemic funds, a lower than-expected return on investments and rising costs including utilities.
District spokesperson Ryan Gilding said some of the affected 50 employees will be working through June.
On Thursday night, the Lansing School District Board of Education voted unanimously to authorize contract negiotiations to hire Benavides as the permenant superintendent. Benavides was deputy superintendent under Ben Shuldiner, who left the top job this year for a similar role in Seattle.
Benavides’ roots run deep in Lansing, she has been a teacher or administrator at the district for all but one year of her career. She spoke to City Pulse earlier this year.
On a shelf in her office is her grandmother’s diploma from Eastern High School, signed by J. W. Sexton and Dwight Rich, both of whom now have local schools named after them.
Her history with the district has already resonated with many locals, contrasting with to her predecessor, a Harvard graduate who moved to Michigan to accept the job. While she said the district has had a great run over the last five years, with some “phenomenal” things such as establishing universal Pre-K, reducing chronic absenteeism and raising graduation rates and student achievement, she acknowledged that being a Lansing native appealed to residents.
“I think that homegrown is something that resonates with people, because I think we all care about the community we live in,” she said.
Benavides is coming in at a difficult time to run a multicultural district, as fears of immigration enforcement arehaving a chilling effect, especially with Hispanic families, activists told City Pulse earlier this year. Benavides said she understands those fears and knows that outreach to families has been key.
