HUNTINGTON BEACH : 2 Top School Aides to Be Laid Off in Cuts

The superintendent of the Huntington Beach Union High School District on Tuesday said that two top district officials will be laid off to make $120,000 in management cuts ordered last week by the Board of Trustees.

The district’s coordinator of bilingual education and its manager of telecommunications will lose their jobs at the end of this school year, Supt. David Hagen said.

Those layoffs bring the total to 51 jobs that will be eliminated under $3.1 million in budget reductions the board adopted last week. The district will also lay off four school nurses, six psychologists, five school site administrators and scores of other employees, including media technicians and receiving clerks.

Additionally, 13 teaching positions will be axed, although Hagen said he believes the district can erase those jobs through attrition, so no teacher layoffs are expected.

The board called for the $120,000 in district management cuts in order to salvage some educational programs.

Hagen had recommended that students next year not be allowed to enroll in seven classes in one semester, and that juniors and seniors be required to obtain administrative approval to schedule more than five periods.

Trustees eliminated those provisions, favoring instead cuts in the district administrative office. They left it to Hagen to determine how the $120,000 would be cut.

The effect of the new administrative cuts is unknown. They will, however, force other administrators to assume the management of bilingual education--an ever-increasing program in the district--and telecommunications.

Including last week’s cuts, the school district, hit by declining enrollment in past years along with the statewide funding crunch, has slashed $20.7 million from its budgets in the past seven years. The newly adopted cuts from the 1992-93 budget are called the most severe in the district’s history.

And some additional cuts are yet to be made. The adopted list of reductions calls for $200,000 to be trimmed from district after-school activities, including band, drama and underclass sports. Those specific cuts, however, have not yet been determined.

A panel of district officials is devising recommendations for those cuts and will make its proposals to the board Tuesday. Trustees are scheduled to adopt the specific cuts at their April 10 meeting.