Board Urged to Delay Any More Cuts in School Budget

Los Angeles Unified School District finance chief Robert Booker has recommended that the district delay any further cuts in its proposed $3.96-billion budget, despite state funding reductions that could cost the district $77 million in the coming year.

In presenting the budget to the school board on Monday, Booker expressed confidence that the state Legislature will restore the 4.76% cost-of-living increase that Gov. George Deukmejian slashed to 3% when he signed the state budget earlier this month. That reduction cost the school district more than $40 million that it had anticipated spending this year.

Other Deukmejian budget vetoes--including reductions or changes in the funding of year-round schools, driver education training and school construction programs--will cost the district an additional $37 million in the coming year if they are not modified, Booker said.

Those state budget cuts come in the wake of a recently completed series of lengthy and painful program and personnel cuts that the Los Angeles board made to trim $220 million from its 1990-91 budget. Consequently, Booker has recommended that the board await the outcome of legislative action to overturn Deukmejian’s cuts before slicing further into instructional programs.

“It is important that the board and public understand, however, that . . . deeper reductions and more personnel cuts will be necessary” in the coming months if the cost-of-living allocation is not increased, Booker said.