Revise key to budget cuts

Huntington Beach school districts are bracing for major cuts due to a massive statewide funding deficit, and some are considering layoffs as part of the solution to what they call the worst budget in decades. But with a final state budget months away, no one knows just how deep those cuts will have to be.

School districts around the state are waiting for May 10, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to unveil a new proposal for a state budget. The “May revise,” as it is called, is probably the most solid basis districts are going to have before they have to pass a budget this summer — considering that the state legislature blows past its June 15 deadline for a budget almost every year.

“Our budgets have to be turned in,” said Huntington Beach City School District board member Brian Rechsteiner. “The state kind of leaves us hanging out there. We have to finalize our budgets, and they take their sweet time.”

For the Ocean View School District, a planning team proposed letting attrition cut down on the number of middle school teachers, cutting a couple of administrators and one manager, cutting one part-time night custodian per school, as well as boosting revenue through more leasing and diverting funds, with an expected $5-million closure in the budget gap.

When the Huntington Beach Union High School District met this week administration staff showed its latest set of plans: canceling its annual job fair, not filling an empty spot for a career specialist, eliminating an open assistant superintendent position, making its newsletter Web-only, lowering its contribution to workers’ compensation, lease more land, and holding off on repairing instruments and replacing uniforms for school bands for a year.

Along with other cuts, the district was projected to save about $5 million.

The Huntington Beach City School District aims to cut a similar amount, but its board members say they have harder choices because the easier reductions have already been made.

Some proposals include cutting health clerks at each campus, jobs which were just reinstated last year, and erasing a teacher job or two per campus to let class sizes for older students increase.

“Health clerks, we just brought them back last year,” Rechsteiner said. “That was not on my list coming into this. I think we’ve got to look at everything and ask, ‘What can we actually cut?’”

On the other hand, the City School District is still negotiating with its teachers’ and classified employees’ associations, which leaves open the possibility of smaller raises or benefits to avoid other cuts; teachers have loudly opposed that idea at study sessions, however.