Inglewood Schools Study How to Ease Budgetary Pain

Inglewood school board members say that at their meeting Monday they will try to avoid further cuts of employees and individual school budgets. Administrators say such reductions could cripple the district.

The board, entering the final round of a painful budget-cutting process, does not have an easy task.

Over the last two weeks, district officials have cut almost $2 million from an estimated $44 million in the tentative budget, which must be submitted to county education officials by Thursday. The final budget is contingent on Gov. George Deukmejian’s state budget and will be due in September.

With a deficit of $324,467 remaining, budget officials planned to work throughout the weekend preparing for Monday’s meeting. They will study areas proposed by principals and board members, including top administrative positions, the central office budget, the district’s security force and Hillcrest Continuation High School, acting Supt. Vashti Roberts said Saturday. New across-the-board-cuts are also possible.

“When 85% of the budget is in personnel and only 15% is in programs, it stands to reason that you’re going to have to cut some personnel positions,” Roberts said.

“It can’t help but have a negative impact on managerial and classified (non-teaching) employees, since those are the areas first reduced. The feeling of frustration is very real,” she said.

Officials said the district’s budget problems stem from a 2-year salary increase granted to teachers and other employees after a brief 1986 strike. Teachers received a 14% raise over two years, which has depleted district coffers by almost $3 million.

In addition, district schools, as have other Los Angeles County schools, have suffered from an unexpected drop in revenue because of declining enrollments and a shortage of state and federal money, Roberts said.

At a special 6-hour budget session Friday, board members heeded the complaints of angry principals and non-teaching employees, refusing to approve recommended cuts of five elementary school vice principals and a high school dean.

Instead, the board approved $329,948 in cuts, including $115,537 worth of alternative reductions that were hastily prepared by budget officials during a board recess and that covered equipment and operating expenses for the district’s central office.

The board also eliminated one clerical position, reduced spending for liability insurance by $50,000 and approved cuts of 15% in supplies at four elementary schools.

Previous cuts of $1.9 million took a month from the jobs of most 12-month, 11-month and 10-month employees, eliminated several clerical and custodial positions, and left empty all vacant administrative posts, including that of outgoing Supt. Rex Fortune.

Bitter Process

The budget-cutting process has been bitter. Classified employees who lost a month from their work year have threatened to bring district operations to a standstill by all taking their month off during the last half of July and the first half of August, instead of staggering their absences.

Administrators have campaigned heavily to retain their jobs, some of which have been targeted for elimination by board members. Non-teaching employees have criticized the fact that the district’s 600 union-protected teachers will not have to make economic sacrifices.

“The teachers are not giving up one single penny,” said Lawrence Freeman, principal of Inglewood High School, at Friday’s meeting. “Let them share the burden.”

Freeman was one of several speakers Friday who urged the board to consider alternative cuts, saying their schools would be crippled by a further loss of personnel and supplies.

They recommended as areas for possible cuts: the district central office’s nearly $4-million budget; the $800,000 budget of Hillcrest, an alternative high school serving students with academic and discipline problems, who Freeman said could be absorbed into other schools; the district’s $800,000 security force, which critics say is not worked hard enough, and the amount spent on substitute teachers--about $1 million last year--that Freeman termed a waste, saying the substitutes could be replaced by study halls.

“There are many things we could do before we touch the schools,” Freeman said. “Some of the things we have been forced to do lead me to feel that the children are in the background.”

Crozier Junior High School Principal James Crow said: “With these personnel cuts, I don’t think we can provide a safe and adequate educational program as mandated by state law, at any grade level.”

In Agreement

Board members agreed that budget officials should redouble their efforts to spare schools further damage, with board member Caroline Coleman complaining that “no one is leading” the budget process.

But as budget officials pointed out, central office expenses have already been cut, and some proposed cuts would hit essential services such as utility payments, legal fees and money spent for school board elections.

Roberts also reminded proponents of cutting Hillcrest’s budget that the bulk of it goes to salaries of teachers and other employees who would have to be absorbed into the school system.

Another List

Toward the close of Friday’s session, board member Zyra McCloud made a motion offering yet another list of recommended reductions aimed at top management staff. She said the position of assistant superintendent for education services, now held by Roberts in addition to the post of acting superintendent, and other posts could be cut or consolidated for a savings of about $300,000. McCloud also suggested that the budget for substitute teachers be cut to $365,000, saying substitutes are often baby-sitters.

But Coleman had already left the meeting, saying she did not feel well, and board President Lois Hill-Hale declined to second the motion, so McCloud’s motion died. Roberts said her staff would calculate the price of McCloud’s suggested budget reductions in time for Monday’s meeting.

Hill-Hale said she opposed McCloud’s recommendations because they would damage the “educational integrity of the district.” She added, “We need the educational expertise of those top administrators.”

Hill-Hale acknowledged that the budget-cutting process has been painful, but said: “I think most people know that this board listens to everybody. We’re trying to provide a balance.”