$13M must be cut from schools

It’s that time of year again when the Newport-Mesa Unified School District is struggling with how to cut millions of dollars from the 2009-10 budget because of a state budget shortfall.

School administrators are busy drafting recommendations on where $13 million should be cut, and the findings will be presented at a school board meeting Feb. 9, district spokeswoman Laura Boss said Friday.

This is not the first year that the district, with 32 schools and 22,000 students, has been forced to make cuts due to the dwindling pool of money available from the state.

Last year, the district had to cut $11 million from its operating budget and, the year before that, it slashed $3.1 million from its coffers, Boss said.

In both rounds of reductions, layoffs were avoided and various programs had to be restructured or eliminated, Boss said.

But the district hasn’t fared so well this year, economically speaking.

This past summer, district administrators told 100 temporary teachers that they would not be hired back in the fall — a first in the history of the district, Boss said.

But how the district plans to cut the $13 million has not yet been decided, Boss said, adding that the bad news is that the district will probably have to make cuts for the next several years, given the economic climate across the state and the country.

“While these reductions will put constraints on the district’s operations, we remain committed to our main priority, which is protecting the integrity of our instructional programs and maintaining our focus on student learning for students,” she said. “But I can assure that we have and will continue to be very careful in how we affect the human side of our organization.”

If there were any bright side to the economic challenges that lie ahead for the district, Boss said, it’s that test scores continue to rise and that infrastructure improvements in the district continue as planned.