Culver City : School Layoffs Proposed

With a deficit next year estimated at $1.1 million, the Culver City school board has proposed laying off 30 teachers, counselors and school administrators and is looking at cuts in non-teaching staff as well.

Six high school teachers, five elementary school teachers, two counselors, two nurses and two assistant principals are among those slated for layoffs. Notices to them went out before March 15, as required by state law.

At its April 2 meeting, the board is expected to decide on cuts of instructional aides, security personnel, custodians, clerks and food service workers.

Supt. Curt Rethmeyer said the district’s budget problems stem largely from inadequate state funding. The cost of living increase in state funding and lottery income to the district were less than anticipated, and the district’s enrollment, which also determines funding, has been declining.

The $1.1-million deficit for the 1991-92 school year is out of a general fund budget of about $16 million.

The school board is considering placing a parcel tax on the November ballot. The $98 tax, which would have to be approved by two-thirds of the voters, would be levied on each parcel of land for the next four years. But the revenues--about $1 million a year--would not start flowing to the district until the 1992-93 school year, Rethmeyer said.