Deficit-Plagued School District Trims 480 Jobs

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education took a big first step Thursday toward erasing a budget deficit of nearly $500 million, in part by eliminating about 480 jobs in central administration and in the 11 subdistricts that provide services to schools.

Board members still need to find $61.3 million to slice from the LAUSD’s $5.7-billion operating budget before the 2004-2005 fiscal year starts July 1. They gave Supt. Roy Romer until April 9 to recommend further cuts, including more from administration and the subdistricts.

In voting on Romer’s budget proposal, board members stuck with their goal of keeping cuts as far away from classrooms as possible, although they acknowledged that many of the jobs cut, such as in special education and environmental health and safety, would reduce services to students. They postponed action on some proposed cuts in nursing and other health services.

“It preserves our instructional program ... and continues to build on the gains we’ve made” in academic achievement, Board President Jose Huizar said, noting that the budget called for no layoffs of regular teachers and no increase in class sizes.

The 750,000-student district employs about 75,000 people, nearly 50,000 of them teachers.

Board member David Tokofsky urged his colleagues to hold off on many of the cuts so that “we don’t slip on the banana peel of unintended consequences.” By law, the district does not have to adopt its budget until June and it can revise the budget in August or September.

But he got no support from the other six board members.

“We need to let everyone know as soon as possible what the situation is, so they can make decisions,” board member Mike Lansing said after the vote. Referring to the two previous, highly contentious years of budget-cutting, Lansing said, “We’ve taken our time in the past and it has forced everybody into a big, mad scramble at the end.”

And Huizar said it was important to “send a message” -- to county fiscal watchdogs and to others -- that “this district is taking control of its finances.... It’s making the tough decisions.”

During a special meeting Wednesday, the board’s private budget advisor, school finance expert John Mockler, had urged the board to act as soon as possible.

“The earlier you make the cuts, the more you save,” said Mockler, a former state secretary of education, adding that he did not expect the fiscal situation to improve soon.

Reeling from several years of cuts from the financially strapped state, which provides much of local districts’ funding, Los Angeles Unified has made about $1 billion in spending reductions over the last three budget years. Those reductions made this year’s gap of nearly $500 million especially difficult to close.

The board voted to send 171 layoff notices to psychiatric social workers, attendance counselors and others who could lose their jobs. State law requires certain groups of employees to get such notices by March 15; if the notices aren’t received by then, the board cannot cut the positions for the coming fiscal year, although it can rescind notices that have been received by the deadline. Other groups of employees require much shorter notice or no notice for layoffs.

The district is trying to figure out how many positions in various categories may be empty because of attrition.

Romer had proposed cuts that would have solved all but $56 million of the budget problem, but board members added back -- for the time being, at least -- $1.8 million in nursing and other health and human services jobs. And they added $3.5 million to put more school police officers at middle schools and high schools.

“Safety is a top priority for this board,” said board member Marlene Canter, who pushed for more police with Huizar and board member Julie Korenstein.

Romer said he was pleased with the board’s resolve to make the cuts in a timely fashion. “They took a very large step in solving the problem,” Romer said after the vote. “It’s going to be very difficult to find that next $61 million, but we’ve got to do it.”

But John Perez, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, repeated the union’s position that the board ought to eliminate all 11 subdistricts. “You must do more to curb the LAUSD bureaucracy,” Perez told the board.

Other steps the board approved Thursday included saving $144 million by refinancing debt and using other one-time money sources, cutting $61 million worth of employee work hours, and eliminating $71 million from campus maintenance and from support programs for new teachers. The proposed budget also assumes that the district will be successful in its current negotiations with employee unions to save $25 million in benefit costs.