Broward schools to slash budget by $65 million. Here’s what may be cut.

Broward schools plan to make cuts to security staff, administrators and other expenses in an effort to slash the district budget by $64.6 million.

Superintendent Howard Hepburn has outlined some of the broad cuts for the 2025-26 school year in a memo sent to the School Board, while the South Florida Sun Sentinel has obtained data showing where some specific cuts may be.

The district is facing cuts in state funding due to enrollment drops as more families choose private school vouchers and other education options. Enrollment has declined about 30,000 from a decade ago and is expected to drop another 8,800 this fall. But the number of employees has increased by 324 over that same time period.

This will be the district’s largest effort in years to “right-size.” The district has been able to avoid major cuts in recent years due to an infusion of federal COVID relief dollars and referendum dollars. But those dollars have either been exhausted or already allocated.

“These challenges have necessitated strategic reorganization to ensure fiscal responsibility without compromising student services and academic outcomes,” Hepburn wrote in his memo, dated May 2.

The Sun Sentinel has learned one of the major cuts being proposed will be in security.

District spokesman John Sullivan confirmed on Thursday that the district plans to cut 104 campus monitors and four other security positions.

Although the district has regularly cut teaching and custodial positions based on enrollment declines, the number of security positions has grown dramatically as a result of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland.

Broward County Schools Superintendent Howard Hepburn speaks during a special meeting of the Broward County School Board in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.

The district has about 692 campus monitors, triple the number from 2015-16, and about 250 security specialists, which is twice as many as a decade ago. The district also has 14 area security managers and about 90 armed guardians, positions that didn’t exist prior to Stoneman Douglas.

While most Florida districts have beefed up security since Stoneman Douglas, “comparatively speaking, we’re overstaffed,” Hepburn said at an April 8 board workshop.

Security personnel, both armed and unarmed, will be allocated next school year based on a new formula, using not only the size of the school but the number of reported behavior and safety incidents at a school, Deputy Superintendent Angela Fulton wrote in an April 25 memo obtained by the Sun Sentinel.

“This ensures that staffing levels are responsive to both the size of the school and its safety environment while maintaining fairness, consistency, and transparency in how resources are allocated,” Fulton wrote.

The 104 campus monitor reductions will occur through attrition, with many positions already vacant, Sullivan said.

“It’s important to note that school security staffing has not previously been adjusted based on declining enrollment,” he said. “Even after these reductions, BCPS will maintain a higher level of security personnel than the majority of comparable school districts.”

The district also has proposed eliminating dozens of other non-administrator positions, including 21 in academics, 12 in operations, four in communications, 10 in information technology, eight in human resources, three in finance and two in strategy, Sullivan confirmed. He said most of these are currently vacant.

A proposed organization chart prepared for a May 6 workshop includes eliminating some higher-paid administrators as well. These include the executive director of academics, the executive director of student support initiatives, the assistant director of climate and discipline, a director of compensation, a budget analyst, a foster care supervisor and a child abuse and neglect prevention supervisor.

Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Howard Hepburn and School Board member Lori Alhadeff watch the rollout of metal detectors at Charles Flanagan High School in Pembroke Pines on June 24, 2024. The school district plans to make cuts to security staff and other expenses in an effort to slash the district budget.

Hepburn said he expects most job cuts to come through attrition and transfers. He said he wants to fill only about 40% of vacancies. He has not announced any plans for layoffs.

“The District remains committed to supporting any impacted employees by connecting them with employment services and other resources,” Sullivan said. “While any staff reduction is challenging, the Superintendent believes it is necessary to align staffing levels and budget realities with declining enrollment. This will allow BCPS to continue delivering high-quality opportunities for students while preserving competitive compensation for our employees.”

Hepburn’s memo has identified some other cost-saving measures as well, including:

— Reducing overtime by $50 million.

— Reducing travel and conference costs by $1 million.

— Not renewing $6.6 million in district contracts, mostly in technology services.

— Making $426,000 in transportation cuts through efficiencies, including “optimizing bus routes, reducing fuel consumption, and improving overall transportation management,” according to Hepburn’s memo.

The district is also counting as savings $954,477 in positions that are now paid for through the general fund but will soon be paid for out of other budgets with more available dollars.

“Making deliberate and significant financial decisions ensures that our students benefit from an effective and innovative organization,” Hepburn wrote in his memo. “Our strategic realignments and cost-saving measures are designed to maintain programmatic integrity while optimizing available revenue streams, ensuring financial discipline and operational efficiency.”

Overall, Hepburn is proposing about $404,552 in cuts to higher-paid administrator positions and $5.7 million in cuts to lower-level and school-based positions, his proposal shows. School Board members see that disparity as a problem.

“I was disappointed not to see some more positions eliminated,” Board Chairwoman Debbi Hixon said at a May 6 meeting. “I know we’re working on budgets for schools, and there are schools that are losing more staff at a school level than we are overall in the district.”

Board member Allen Zeman noted that the district has regularly cut teaching positions when enrollment has fallen but hasn’t done the same for central office jobs.

“We cannot keep taking cuts on school sites and not look at our upper management, middle management and administration,” Zeman said at the May 6 meeting. He said student enrollment has dropped about 17% in the past decade, so administrative costs should be going down by that much.

“Otherwise, we have to answer to people why we are taking bigger cuts in our classrooms than outside our classrooms,” Zeman said.

Hepburn told Zeman that the district has reduced costs by about 15% in the past decade. Sullivan later clarified to the Sun Sentinel that this reduction is based on figures from 2019-20, not actually a decade ago. The district added a number of new positions around that time as a result of Stoneman Douglas, a 2018 referendum and COVID-19. Since 2020, central office staff has fallen from 4,654 employees to 3,988, Sullivan said.

To reduce the budget overall by 17%, 1,500 jobs would need to be eliminated, Hepburn said.

“I can X out everyone on the org chart, but that still won’t get us an overall 17% cut,” Hepburn said at the meeting. “That’s why the strategy is depending on attrition to get there by employees already leaving our system.”