The Palo Alto High School staff has held a series of meetings to brainstorm ideas to reduce the $5.7 million budget deficit projected for the year of 2011-2012.
The district has made a list of potential cuts to illustrate each cut’s impact on reducing expenses.
According to Assistant Superintendent Scott Bowers, the PAUSD school board passed a budget that over-speculated the growth of property taxes by $3 million last year. Because of this over-projection of property tax growth, the PAUSD projected a small deficit. Unexpectedly, the state passed a $4.4 million reduction in district funding as well, deepening the already large deficit.
Bowers also indicated that in total, these reductions in funding created a $7.4 million in expected deficit, which the district expects to alleviate by tightening staffing. However, the district only expects to save $1.7 by tightening staffing. Bowers said this leaves a total of $5.7 million to cut from spending.
Some of the ideas the district administration brainstormed include reducing the staff’s salary by one percent, which would alone save $1,098,000. Other suggestions include having furlough days, or unpaid breaks, for all employees, which would save $570,000, or even opting out of ERB testing, which would save $45,000.
English department Instructional Supervisor Trinity Klein said some expected consequences of the budget cut include increases in class size and elimination of programs and classes.
“No one likes the ideas of cuts, but I believe everyone is aware that there has to be some sort of adjustments,” Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson said.
PAUSD elementary, middle, and high school administrators will have to look at ways they can reduce expenditures. Currently, some administrators say they are assessing ways to reduce costs that reflect their priorities.
“Being in a K-12 district, each group will have their own list of priorities of what to keep,” Berkson said. “An elementary group would likely want to keep the elementary class numbers down, whereas a high school may have other priorities.”
English teachers have voiced their concern about increasing class sizes, because of the negative effect it would have on the classroom.
“Increasing class sizes might reduce the quality of the education here at Paly,” Klein said. “Teachers just can’t accommodate an overflow of students.”
According to Berkson, the administration understands teachers’ concerns.
“I believe that teachers want cuts to be as far away from the classroom as possible,” Berkson said.
Administrators are also considering the possibility of terminating positions.
“My guess is less people will be doing the same amount of work in some cases, possibly having some job descriptions changed or combined,” Berkson said.