WESTMINSTER : Schools Cut $542,500 to Avert Shortfall

Although the Westminster School District board cut $542,500 from its 1992-93 budget to avert a potential shortfall, school officials believe that the state budget crisis will require more budget reductions soon.

“I believe this is the winter of our despair in California,” Supt. Gail Wickstrom said Thursday shortly before the Board of Trustees considered which positions and programs to eliminate.

Wickstrom emphasized that her list of proposed cuts did not reflect on the importance of the programs and positions in question. “No program on these sheets should be cut,” she said. “These are all effective programs, and all our employees are doing a good job.”

At its regular meeting, the board decided to reduce payments to the employee retirement fund by $225,000, and cut $20,000 from staff development and conference budgets. Conceding that recently recruited clerical help is desperately needed, the board nonetheless decided to reduce those positions by half to save $29,000.

Other reductions included a $61,000 administrative position, a $30,000 maintenance job, and three of the five teachers who run a reading program at selected schools, saving $51,000.

Other savings will come from cuts in non-discretionary funds, totaling $80,000; elimination of the employee assistance program, $17,500; and other cutbacks.

Despite the budget cuts, only one teacher will be laid off, according to Assistant Supt. Barbara Winars. The rest will be reassigned.

The board also authorized Wickstrom to implement a second round of reductions contingent on further cuts in state funding. Those additional reductions, which total $423,000, include eliminating a reading program, all recently added clerical help for schools, a psychologist, several health aides, a music program, an additional maintenance worker and a school nurse.

Although the board prioritized the programs that must be eliminated, board member Ron Morgan said it was “like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The ship’s going to go down no matter what, folks. It’s not going to matter.”

After the cuts were made, Morgan said, the reductions would not severely hurt education, only make the effort a little harder. “Its going to add a lot of stress for the remaining staff,” he added.

Joey Van Camp, the district’s coordinating nurse, asked the board to move a school nurse from the list of immediate cuts to the list of possible cuts, saying, “reducing our numbers can only hurt children and families in the district.”

The board granted the request. Later, Van Camp said she was pleased by the action and hopeful that the second level of reductions would not be necessary. But, she added, “we’re at the level where cuts that hurt are unavoidable.”