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Superintendent Chris Bernier hosts a town hall at duPont Middle School on Jan. 23, 2025. | Megan Mallicoat, Jacksonville Today

Duval Schools town halls tackle district budget woes; last town hall is Thursday

Published on January 28, 2025 at 5:14 pm
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Duval Schools Superintendent Christopher Bernier worked the room in San Jose’s duPont Middle School media center last Thursday evening, holding a wireless mic as he wove through tables and colorful plastic chairs among the standing-room-only crowd of parents, district employees, students and community members.

At the fifth of seven public town halls Bernier is holding to get feedback on the district’s most pressing challenges, he began his presentation by highlighting Duval Schools’ recent accomplishments. The 95.3% grad rate for traditional high schools last year. The 91% of district-operated schools that earned C’s or better. Improved literacy rates at 60% of elementary schools.

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On the other hand, average daily attendance is at a record low, 88%, after declining since the pandemic, he said. Given Duval Schools’ enrollment of more than 100,000 students in traditional schools, that translates to about 12,000 absent students on any given day.

After touching on a statewide mandate to push back middle- and high-schools’ start times, Bernier finished his presentation with the $100 million elephant in the room: the district’s budget shortfall. 

Money, money, money

Duval Schools’ budget crisis isn’t new, but six months into the job, Bernier gave the anxious stakeholders some new details about potential approaches to address its $100 million deficit. 

Last year, interim Superintendent Dana Kriznar faced intense criticism for proposing a budget-balancing measure that would have eliminated as many as 700 positions. At the time, Kriznar said many of those jobs had been supported with COVID-era emergency funding, which was due to expire. 

Bernier also named the federal funding loss as the culprit for many of the current financial troubles. 

“What masked it was COVID money,” Bernier said. “The [federal program] dollars that flowed into this system gave us a false sense of security — and we did something you should never do in a budget. You don’t create a recurring expense on non-recurring dollars.”

Bernier said the district has been spending more money than it’s brought in for five years, while making up the difference with its reserves. The gap between income and expenditures is projected to be wide again this year. 

“That’s the reserve fund amount,” Bernier said, pointing to a line trending downward on one chart. “This is the only indication I had — and I didn’t ask enough questions of my CFO when I came to the interview — I asked him just a short, simple question: ‘Is our fund balance really at 4.7 [%]?’ and he said yes.”

The state requires school districts to hold at least 3% of their budgets in reserves, and Bernier said the district is close to a state takeover of its finances.

The district’s enrollment has also dropped in recent years. Today, about 4,000 fewer students attend Duval’s traditional public schools than four years ago. The district receives about $8,750 in state funding for each student, so the loss of 4,000 represents more than $35 million in revenue. (Over the same time period, 7,000 more students enrolled in the district’s independently operated charter schools, according to state Department of Education data.)

Bernier told the crowd that building up the reserves will help attract and retain good teachers — which could in turn help to bring more students back into the district. Increased enrollment equals an increase in revenue.

“You have to be competitive with wages, you have to give competitive compensation packages,” Bernier said. “We’re losing our teachers — we’re losing them to St. Johns, Clay, Nassau, Georgia, Baker — because they’re paying more than we are. That’s why we’ve got to get to a better monetary position.”

State Education Department data show none of the Florida districts Bernier named pay teachers more than Duval. Last year, Duval teachers’ average salary was almost $54,000, and their median salary was $52,000. All of Duval’s bordering districts pay less.

District spokesperson Tracy Pierce told Jacksonville Today that investing in teacher compensation is essential for recruiting and retaining teachers. 

“There are districts that pay more than Duval, and we can’t ignore the importance of compensation as we seek to solve our budget challenges and maintain instructional excellence in the classroom,” Pierce said.

Where will the cuts come from?

Bernier presented some of the cuts he’s considering: Magnet transportation reduction. Schedule changes. School consolidations.

Most of the people who spoke during the meeting expressed concern about the ideas. 

Eliminating transportation to magnet schools would save money — possibly $12 million a year, Bernier says. State law requires school districts to provide transportation for students who live more than 2 miles from their zoned schools, but Bernier says there’s “no legal requirement” to bus students to magnet schools. 

“If you were at home and your savings account was getting near zero, you would have to make difficult changes, and you’d have a family meeting. You’d talk about how your budget’s going to change, what you need to change,” Bernier said. “That’s what I’m trying to just get people to understand.” 

Magnet schools are one of the district’s strengths, numerous parents told the superintendent, and eliminating transportation to them would risk putting the magnets out of reach for many students, they worried.

A mother of three Duval students told Bernier, “Had there not been magnet transportation, I don’t know if attendance would have been a priority.” 

Another idea, reducing the number of periods in a day for middle- and high-school students from eight to seven would save “$7 or 8 million” annually, according to Bernier.

Bernier said class cuts would help protect teachers’ jobs. The district spends 87% of its budget on “human beings,” he said.

A teenage girl told Bernier she’s a sophomore at Wolfson and asked how reducing class schedules to a seven-period day, and so reducing the overall number of classes taught, would not result in cutting teachers.

Bernier said current vacancies might be able to be filled with existing staff, and other classes currently taught by uncertified substitutes could instead be given to teachers.

Some parents worried the change would come at the expense of students who complete a wide array of electives and college-level courses in high school.

As he concluded the event, Bernier thanked the attendees for sharing what they see Duval Schools doing well.

“You also gave me some things we needed to be working on,” he said. “And you told me in the process that some of the ideas that I have for how to balance the budget aren’t really comfortable with all of you. 
I’ve heard that, and I know that I have to now get my scale out, weigh things back and forth and make some determinations of what we’re gonna do to try.”

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Bernier’s last public town hall will be on Thursday, Jan. 30, at 6 p.m., at Chaffee Trail Middle School, at 11770 Sam Caruso Way, 32221. All district students, parents and interested community members are invited to attend. 


author image Reporter email Megan Mallicoat is a Jacksonville Today reporter focusing on education. Her professional experience includes teaching at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, as well as editing, communications management, web design, and graphic design. She has a doctorate in mass communication with an emphasis in social psychology from UF. In her "free time," you'll most likely find her on the sidelines of some kind of kids’ sports practice, holding a book.

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