Fort Worth ISD said it cut 133 jobs due to fleeting COVID funds. Records say differently.

Fort Worth Independent School District officials announced in February the unfortunate news of layoffs that they said were necessary due to the expiration of federal COVID-19 relief funding. But new records obtained by the Star-Telegram show a larger scale of terminations with only a fraction of them being funded through COVID-19 relief money.

The Fort Worth ISD school board finalized on Feb. 13 a workforce reduction amid budget constraints with information technology positions taking the biggest hit and 133 positions total being cut, officials said at the time. In district documents, officials pointed the blame at the last round of ESSER, or Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, expiring in September while the district was — and still is — grappling with a lack of additional state funding and declining student enrollment.

Officials stated that there were 133 positions cut with 129 that were federally funded and four positions that were locally funded. A public information request submitted to the district by the Star-Telegram was returned with a list of 254 cut positions, almost twice the number of the previously disclosed 133 positions. Only 63 of those positions were ESSER funded.

The public information request asked for the job titles, salaries and funding sources of each Fort Worth ISD employee notified on the week of Feb. 12 that their positions were being terminated. Data analysts made up the largest group of cut positions with 87 employees, or about 34% of the positions. Most of these positions were Title I funded with the exception of three that were ESSER funded, records show. Most of the other terminated IT positions were labeled under “local maintenance” funds. Additionally, Superintendent Angélica Ramsey stated in February that she did not recommend classroom teachers be impacted by the layoffs, but records show four elementary school teaching positions were cut during this time period.

Chief of Talent Management Woodrow Bailey told the Star-Telegram there are variables with employees ending their current contracts and switching to different positions within the district. He noted the restructuring of the technology department that consisted of at-will employees, who do not need formal approval from the board to be terminated, and contract employees.

“It does not mean that they even lost their jobs because many of them — most of them — moved into other positions within the district,” Bailey said. He did not provide specific numbers on employees who were rehired into different positions.

Bailey added that the number of vacancies in the district “far outnumbered” the number of employees impacted by the school board’s workforce reduction.

District officials did not address questions from the Star-Telegram about where the 133 impacted positions they had announced in February came from; what the disparity was between that number and the 254 positions shown on the district records; and whether there were other termination notices given the same week of the school board decision that may have been issued separately.

According to Joanna LeFebvre, a research associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, almost 50% of the last round of ESSER funding has gone to labor costs when looking at limited nationwide data from states that shared details on how their dollars were spent. In general, the money went toward addressing learning losses and curbing the impacts of COVID-19 through investments in academic, health and social-emotional needs. Now, districts across the country are forced to adjust to the loss of this funding source and make difficult decisions in the process.

“We’ve seen headlines about districts having to lay off staff,” LeFebvre said. “I think there is an opportunity here for states to learn from what this investment has meant and to sustain it.”

LeFebvre noted how there was a wave of corporate and personal income tax cuts in various states over the past three years due to the major infusion of federal relief money.

“With federal funding drying up, we’re going to start seeing the effects of those tax cuts, and they’re going to have to reduce (public) services,” she said. “States that have not cut taxes in the last three years are going to be much better positioned to continue or increase their investments in public education, than states that have chosen to cut taxes in recent years.”

In Texas, there are no corporate or personal income taxes, but an $18 billion package passed by lawmakers and then approved by voters in November through a ballot measure has reduced school property taxes through rate cuts and implemented an increased homestead exemption. Another November ballot item that went forward was a pension increase for retired teachers, consisting of a 2% to 6% cost-of-living adjustment that is tiered based on when the former teacher retired.

Current public educators, though, have been caught in the middle of education funding and private school voucher debates within the Texas Legislature. Despite a $38.7 billion surplus , teachers have not seen pay increases.

Aracely Chavez, the Fort Worth district’s former executive director of IT training and compliance, was among the employees who were laid off but whose position had existed prior to the district receiving ESSER funding. She was notified on Valentine’s Day of the layoff, according to a termination letter reviewed by the Star-Telegram. Her last day with the district is on Wednesday.

“On February 14, 2024 the District informed you in writing of your position ending and encouraged you to consider and apply for other positions with the District if you had an interest in continued employment with FWISD. As of June 13, 2024, you have not been selected for, and have not accepted, another position with the District,” the letter reads. “Because you are an at-will employee, FWISD is not required by law or policy to have any cause for this employment action.”

Chavez told the Star-Telegram she was confused when she and her colleagues were informed about the upcoming layoffs during an in-person department meeting, she said. District officials said in the meeting that the technology department would be restructured due to budget constraints, Chavez said.

“I didn’t really understand that because they’ve been knowing that the ESSER funds were going away for a long time,” Chavez said. “We weren’t ESSER-funded.”

Chavez was first hired by Fort Worth ISD in 2000 as a human resources administrator and had worked in various positions before becoming an executive director in the technology department in 2016, according to her resume. In this time frame, she spent three years unemployed by the district in the midst of a whistleblower lawsuit related to Chavez disclosing a flawed payroll system that overpaid district employees and former staffers more than $1.5 million in 2009, according to the Star-Telegram’s archives. She was reinstated to the district in 2012 after the school board approved a $135,000 settlement.

Although her employment with Fort Worth ISD is ending this week, Chavez has continuing grievances and ties to the district. Chavez has an ongoing grievance in which she alleges the district improperly denied her sick leave benefits and accommodations in 2023 as she was receiving physical and occupational therapies for breast cancer treatment and recovery.

Additionally, after Chavez was notified of her termination in February, she was put on administrative leave after the district in May accused her of misconduct by way of “inappropriately using district resources for personal use, advantage or gain,” records obtained by the Star-Telegram show. Chavez says the accusation stemmed from her having access to a payroll system where she had to take employee information and transfer it to the district’s training and compliance systems since they were not connected.

An Office of Professional Standards investigation substantiated the allegation of misconduct, but Chavez denies any wrongdoing. Chavez says she was never taken off of administrative leave.

Moving forward, Chavez said she still plans to be involved in the district as a taxpayer, grandmother of a Fort Worth ISD student and community member. But she is leaving her post feeling somewhat relieved to be free of what she described as a negative workplace.

“I just think that there’s a lot of waste and mismanagement… The culture is really bad in Fort Worth ISD,” Chavez said. “I’m probably going to take some time just to heal from this whole experience and find my voice again.”

Fort Worth ISD officials declined to comment on Tuesday on Chavez’s grievance, alleged misconduct or her description of the district’s management and culture. Spokesperson Jessica Becerra said the district does not comment on personnel matters.