Schools’ Budget Ax Ready to Chop Out $7.8 Million More

From language to music to sports, from new textbooks to special teacher training to libraries, almost no function of the San Diego Unified School District--urban America’s eighth-largest--would be untouched by $7.8 million in budget cuts proposed by district officials Thursday.

The cuts would be in addition to $2.8 million cut by the school board last month in expectation of a minimal increase in state education funds for San Diego under Gov. George Deukmejian’s proposed budget. That proposed increase--about $2 million--will leave the district almost $10.6 million short of the money it needs simply to maintain the present level of school services due to normal growth and inflation for an estimated 116,000 students next fall.

With the expected state funds far less than the $42-million increase that San Diego Unified received for the current school year, district administrators do not foresee any compromise between the governor and the Legislature that would restore enough money to avoid the proposed cuts.

In detailing the proposed cutbacks Thursday, administrators said they attempted to avoid affecting direct classroom instruction as much as possible, instead targeting support services for teachers and programs across the board, such as districtwide counseling services, special help for disabled students and psychological evaluations for gifted children. The full effects of such reductions in support activities often do not show up for several years, according to administrators.

But one immediate result will be additional responsibilities--in some cases substantially more--on individual schools and teachers to carry out themselves, as much as they can, the supplementary activities previously done at the district level.

The proposed 1987-88 budget of $423 million--$3 million less than the current year total--includes no provision for salary increases for any of the district’s 11,817 employees. A small 1% raise--which would cost the district $3.3 million--would be considered only if Deukmejian provides additional funds.

Despite the emphasis on administrative cuts, some programs would disappear, including music instruction for elementary school students and the high school teams in water polo, boys and girls swimming, field hockey and golf.

An estimated 217 positions, including 115 teachers, counselors, psychologists and nurses, would be eliminated, although all but about 10% of the employees would probably be retained by filling other positions vacated because of normal yearly retirements and resignations.

Deputy Supt. Bertha Pendleton, in briefing reporters and affected groups Thursday, decried the “reduction of this magnitude of support to schools,” but said that planners saw “no way to get around this,” given the financial figures looming in the district’s future.

The Board of Education will hold public hearings on the budget during its next two Tuesday meetings, with an expected vote March 10 in order to meet legal requirements for notifying by March 15 the employees who may not be rehired for the 1987-88 school year.

Among the major reductions identified Thursday:

- Elimination of 31 positions in special education areas by reorganizing the program to save $1.6 million. The cuts eliminate resource specialists, some health services, hourly support teachers, field trips and reference book purchases. For example, special counseling for deaf students would have to be done by on-site teachers, adding to their responsibilities, rather than by districtwide guidance specialists who now visit several schools to perform that specific function.

- Elimination of 13 positions and a one-third budget cut in the program for about 8,000 gifted and talented children, known as the GATE program. Gifted classes at Dewey and Valencia Park elementary schools would be shut down and the students moved to neighboring schools. Class sizes for gifted seminar classes would be increased at several schools. Some seminar classes would be closed and students moved to cluster classes, in which gifted and non-gifted high achievers are mixed.

The number of psychologists who evaluate students for placement in GATE would be cut from eight to four, lengthening the time needed to enroll a student in the program. Districtwide coordination of GATE programs such as academic decathlons, outside lecturers, national presentations of San Diego’s efforts and materials for parents of gifted children would be cut by half or more.

Deukmejian’s budget calls for elimination of statewide gifted children funding, which provided $600,000 to San Diego this school year. The district would itself cut $400,000 from the current $2.6 million now provided locally.

“A $1-million reduction is a substantial reduction,” Pendleton said. “But I still think (GATE) is a quality program. . . . We have consolidated (classes) rather than affected the service in the classroom.” Pendleton said she did not think that GATE would be affected to the point that parents of such students would move en masse to place their children in private schools, although that has been intimated already by a group representing some of those parents.

- Elimination of numerous districtwide services, including those for special counseling of students, for circulating 800,000 books to elementary schools without adequate libraries, for training teachers in second-language areas, such as Spanish and Vietnamese, for evaluating teaching efforts and programs, and for improving writing skills.

In organized sports competition, water polo, swimming for boys and girls, field hockey and golf in high schools would be ended, under plans drawn up by high school principals and athletic directors to take their share of budget cuts. All intramural sports would be eliminated.

- A cut in half of funding for preventive maintenance, which would eliminate all but the most essential maintenance jobs, such as keeping boilers operating. Administrators bemoaned the $500,000 slash because the district has never fully recovered from a $40-million cut in operations and maintenance during the 1980-82 school year.

Despite the many cuts, Pendleton said the proposed budget still may be inadequate. For example, it contains no funding for a hoped-for revision in the math curriculum for grades kindergarten through eight, which would cost $2.5 million.

The budget uses the Deukmejian Administration estimate of $108 per student expected from state lottery proceeds despite the probability--based on overestimates during the present year--that the actual receipts will be less. In the worst case, Pendleton said, the district might receive $20 per student less, resulting in an additional $3-million budget shortfall. (Lottery revenue covers about 3% of the district’s total budget.)

Pendleton said that lottery money was originally described as supplemental to state general fund monies.

“But now because the base of funding is being reduced, the (lottery) funds are no longer a true supplement,” she said. Instead, the lottery money must be used to replace monies cut from the general fund.

Should the state budget ultimately provide more money for the district, Pendleton said that administrators would probably recommend some salary increases for employees as well as funding for the math curriculum and other areas now completely without support. A 1% salary increase would cost the district $3.3 million. Salaries have risen 27% over the past three years.

In no case would any additional funds be enough to restore the cuts proposed Thursday, Pendleton said. She said proposed programs for drug prevention and elementary school libraries that the district would like to begin cannot even be brought to board members now because of the money shortage.

Last month, in the first cuts totaling $2.8 million, the school board eliminated two integration magnet programs at elementary schools and a remedial reading program for elementary school children, as well as some nursing and other support positions.

For a look at how the proposed budget cuts would affect sports in the San Diego city schools, please see Part III, Page 2A.