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Lee County school district officials presented a 10-year, $1.9 billion school construction plan and a list of 30 positions they may no longer need to the School Board on Tuesday.

To some, it doesn’t make much sense. The district is spending here, but getting rid of people’s jobs there.

“It is our best fiscal policy to plan for tomorrow and for future generations,” board member Steven Teuber said in support of nearly $9 million in land purchases on one end.

“We have to talk to you about a reduction in force and although it’s not a lot of folks, people that had a job this year probably won’t have a job next year,” Superintendent James Browder told the board on the other end.

But it’s not as cut and dry.

The construction, or capital plan, which also accounts for maintenance expenditures, includes the construction of one elementary school in the district’s south zone. The south zone makes up an area south of downtown Fort Myers, including Estero and Bonita Springs, and has seen a decrease of hundreds of students in the last three years.

But in all, the district plans to build 22 schools, including 13 elementary schools, four middle schools, two high schools and three special schools. The plan also includes $356 million in major renovation projects, but none of the money being used for the schools is the same money used to fund employee positions.

The money used to fund the 30 positions that may be eliminated comes from the district’s operations fund, which was cut by $20 million this year, has been cut by $29 million for next year and is expected to be cut by millions more in the next few years.

District Human Resources Director Greg Adkins said the positions may also be eliminated as the result of a class-size reduction amendment passed in 2002.

“Unfortunately, the current economic situation and the funding we’ve received from the state have required that we move forward in requiring this event,” Adkins told the board.

As a result, the positions my be reduced. The district uses the term reduced, because the positions haven’t been cut, school officials say, they just are no longer needed. It is not known, though, how many employees will actually be laid off as a result of the positions being eliminated. That won’t be known for two years.

The system works like this: a position is no longer needed, so the district attempts to reassign the person in the position to a similar, vacant spot within the district. Then the district drafts a "surplus list," the final frontier before job loss.

But it isn't the original individuals affected that are placed on the list. That depends on their seniority. If a 20-year veteran district school secretary's position is no longer needed, the district finds the least experienced school secretary and bumps that person onto the list. The veteran fills the rookies spot, as required in the employees' contract.

The district attempts to find the rookie employees on the list a totally different job within the district, but if they can’t find one, then the employee will end up jobless. If a job becomes available within two years, the employee is given a right of first refusal for that position.

Adkins said he would be meeting with school principals in the coming week. The principals are required to attend the meeting and offer up any vacant positions. Thirteen employees who's positions were no longer needed have already been placed in new positions, Adkins said. But 30 remain.

“We really feel at this point that we can continue to get all of those people placed,” Adkins told the board. “If we still have folks that are on our surplus list as of the 12th, then we will be coming forward to the board with a reduction in force.”

The employees working in the positions being reduced are not teachers in a classroom. Some of them work in a support role by helping teachers in the classroom. Among the other positions reduced are school secretaries, typists and custodians.

Though Adkins said 20 teacher positions were also no longer needed, he said it would be extremely unlikely that those teachers wouldn't find another position within the district. Browder said the district has no plans to lay off any classroom teachers.

“But let me say this out loud, that could change,” Browder told the board. “Everything could change in one year. We are very concerned about our elective teachers given the circumstances around what we are dealing with the class size. It is not what we would think of as the best of times.”