By Scott Travis | South Florida Sun Sentinel

Student enrollment in Broward schools has dropped nearly 30,000 over the past decade, but the number of employees has increased by 324, an untenable situation that will likely trigger major cuts over the next year, Superintendent Howard Hepburn said this week.

Had the school district been reducing its staff at the same rate it was losing students, it would have about 4,500 fewer employees, Romaneir Johnson, the district’s new chief financial officer, acknowledged at a meeting Tuesday.

It’s a picture that’s “out of whack,” Superintendent Howard Hepburn, who started a year ago, told the School Board on Tuesday.

And it’s only likely to get worse: The state estimates that enrollment in district-run schools will decline another 8,800 students next school year from about 192,098 to 183,284, which would equal a loss in state funding of about $79.3 million, the district analysis shows. The numbers don’t include students attending charter schools, which are run independently.

Hepburn said he plans to start looking for ways to cut costs over the next year, and he’s starting with a hiring freeze on central office positions. He did not announce plans for any layoffs right now and said the most dramatic changes probably wouldn’t happen until the 2026-27 school year.

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