LONG BEACH : School Board Approves $5.1 Million in Cuts
The Long Beach Unified school board has approved $5.1 million in budget cuts that will increase high school class size, reduce custodial and grounds-keeping staffs and slightly decrease library, nursing and counseling services. As many as two dozen non-teaching employees, mostly custodians and groundskeepers, face layoffs.
“We feel terrible about the cuts, but I don’t know of any alternative,” board President Bobbie Smith said after the vote this week.
Most of the staff reductions will be achieved through attrition. The cuts will decrease next year’s projected budget of the state’s fourth-largest school district by nearly 2%, to about $288.9 million. Although the district has approved budget cuts for three consecutive years, it has so far avoided deeper cuts and the more widespread layoffs suffered by other large urban districts, including the Los Angeles Unified and Montebello Unified school districts.
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