Trustees Balk at Trimming Nurses, Music : Budget: Board tells superintendent to look harder at the central office and administration for additional spending cuts.

The San Diego city school system should not eliminate half its nurses, nor should it end elementary instrumental music programs in order to ease looming financial deficits, trustees told Supt. Tom Payzant during initial budget deliberations Monday.

“I think you can say the board is probably leaning more in the area” of not cutting nurses than in challenging other cuts proposed by Payzant, board President Shirley Weber summed up to the superintendent after a spirited discussion.

Later, after trustees tackled the proposed cut in the elementary music program, Weber told Payzant that “the board is probably leaning against that as well.”

Trustees further indicated that they will be reluctant to move forward with a $200,000 cut that Payzant has targeted for high school competitive sports, although they were not as emphatic as with music and nursing.

Trustees told Payzant to look elsewhere for $2.3 million in reductions that the nursing and music cuts would save. They suggested that more reductions in the central office and administration--beyond the $6.5 million already proposed by Payzant--might be in order. Discussions will continue today and weekly for several weeks on the many reductions Payzant has proposed for district programs and services.

Payzant has suggested $37 million in cuts, or 7% of the $600 million needed to keep existing services next year, because of an estimated $10-billion projected state budget deficit. The state funds almost 90% of the district’s budget.

The plan to eliminate 32 of 66 nurses, at a savings of $1.48 million, has been among his more controversial reductions. It would cut back nursing services at some elementary schools to as little as a half of a day a week, and at large high schools to as little as three days, at a time when even Payzant concedes that many city students have no access to medical care other than the school nurse.

“Right now, in terms of the judgment and skills and counseling that (nurses bring) to schools, I am not in favor of this,” trustee Sue Braun said, to the assent of her four colleagues.

Later, trustee Ann Armstrong spoke for board members during discussion of the proposed elementary instrumental music program, cutting 16 teachers and $826,000.

“I don’t see how we can cut this. . . . It’s basic education just as much as anything else,” she said.

Trustee Susan Davis, referring to the hundreds of letters that have inundated the board regarding budget cuts, said that sufficient funds “could be raised if we had gotten $25 for every letter that we received about music.”

The board agreed to Payzant’s request not to take a formal vote Monday against the nursing and music cuts, to avoid restoring more than the superintendent can find to cut in other areas. In that case, trustees might conceivably make small cuts in the music and nursing areas.

The board also told Payzant to look at increasing football and basketball ticket prices to make up the $200,000 targeted for high school sports. Swimming, water polo, soccer and field hockey have been identified for elimination if the sports cut goes through. Trustee John De Beck said the district might even encourage bingo games at schools, similar to a district near Sacramento that he said covers much of its entire sports program in that manner.

Trustees dismissed without discussion a proposal from a teacher-staff advisory committee for a $1-million slash in sports, or 60% of the $1.6-million annual budget.

Although no clear direction was forthcoming, trustees spent considerable time Monday debating whether there can be deeper reductions in administrative functions, both at individual schools and at the central office on Normal Street.

Trustees will look seriously at putting most secondary principals on 11-month contracts, instead of their existing year-round agreements, which would save more than $200,000. They also talked about reducing the number of vice principals in order to save more than $1 million, as suggested by a community-parent advisory committee.

In the meantime, Payzant unveiled his plan for central office reorganization to the hundreds of employees who would be affected by his effort to prune several million dollars. The Educational Services and School Operations divisions will be folded into a single Schools Services Division.

There would be four assistant superintendents instead of five, and they would take on added responsibilities of evaluating principals, a job now done by lower-level managers known as instructional team leaders. The team leaders would be responsible for monitoring schools as well as carrying out programs in second language, special education, textbook purchases, curriculum reforms, health and student services and gifted education.

Payzant also said that administrators below assistant superintendent would no longer be paid more than principals. Principals now make a maximum $81,996 annually.

The salary change is intended not only to save money but also to further Payzant’s effort to restructure the school system by putting more responsibility with principals and teachers at individual schools, with fewer layers of review between them and the central office.