600 Positions Cut by L.A. Schools...

The Los Angeles Unified School District board on Monday approved a series of “painful” cuts that eliminated more than 600 clerical, resource and administrative positions, lopping $33.3 million from the district’s budget next year.

The cuts are part of the first wave of cost reductions approved last month to save more than $120 million.

At least $57 million more will have to be cut by June 30 to balance the district’s 1990-91 budget of almost $4 billion.

The cuts were concentrated in support services and will result in the virtual elimination of teacher training programs, a reduction in grant money from outside sources, a reorganization of support services, such as student counseling, and slower response time to requests for services from schools.

“These cuts were not easy to recommend,” said Supt. Leonard Britton. “There was a great deal of turmoil . . . about the seriousness of what we are recommending.

“But we have a job to do, and that’s to . . . bring us to a balanced budget.”

While board members tried to keep the first round of cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, next month’s recommendations will likely hit individual schools by cutting teaching positions and transferring state lottery funds from schools to the district’s general fund.

Monday’s vote came after hours of debate and the reconsideration of several cuts recommended by Britton.

Board members Rita Walters and Leticia Quezada voted against the entire cut list, citing concern that it unfairly impacted low-paid women and minority employees and would hurt the district’s bilingual education program.

The vote came after a private consultant hired by the district and a consortium of businesses to help guide the school system’s “downsizing” endorsed the package of cuts, calling the district’s financial crisis “very, very real.”

Leonard Fuller, who has worked with several school districts trying to contain costs as a partner in the Coopers & Lybrand accounting firm, said Los Angeles faces serious problems as it grapples with an explosion in enrollment and growing diversity, coupled with shrinking revenues.

This is a “painful reduction,” Fuller acknowledged, but the first of many the district will have to make, as expenses increase at least 8% each year, and revenues from the state, less than 5%.

Fuller, whose firm is being paid $60,000--$20,000 by the district and $40,000 by outside businesses--recommended that the district conduct a long-term study to learn to manage its resources more efficiently to enable it to get by “with 20 less people and 20% less dollars.”

His preliminary report, detailing how the district can get through next year on $220 million less than it anticipated spending, will be presented to the board next month.