LA HABRA : School Board Slashes Spending, Lays Off 46

The La Habra City School District Board of Trustees has voted to adopt a $17.8-million budget for the coming year, balancing it by making nearly $1 million in cuts, including the elimination of 46 positions.

In a 3-0 vote, the board Tuesday approved the 1992-93 fiscal budget, showing a surplus of $430,000 in revenue. Board members Antonio Valle Jr. and Morrison M. Clements were not present for the vote.

Supt. Richard Hermann warned that the surplus could be gone soon if the district is forced to slash an additional $1 million from still unannounced state funding cuts, and if employees win negotiations for more health benefits.

Preliminary estimates indicate that an increase in health benefits could increase costs by as much as 20% to 25%. Union negotiations are expected to begin in September.

“Even though this is a final budget, we anticipate that when the state finally approves its budget, we’ll have to come back and make changes,” Hermann said.

Academic programs and basic curriculum will not be affected by the cuts, although some supplemental materials and equipment will not be purchased because of low lottery revenue allocations, which are expected to be $80 per student, down 40% over previous years.

Instead, Hermann said, “the biggest sacrifice we’ve had to make is laying off aides and increasing class sizes.”

Under the approved budget, nine teachers, 35 aides and two maintenance employees will be laid off at a savings of $535,000 to the district. The teachers are those with the lowest career tenures. The maintenance personnel, who handled a variety of duties from delivery to printing, consisted of a part-time and full-time position.

Instructional aides, once a fixture in every classroom in the district, are fast becoming an endangered species. Last year’s $1.5-million budget cut resulted in one aide assigned to every two classrooms. For this coming year, the number of instructional aides has been drastically reduced to four per school. Further cuts could eliminate all of them.

Bilingual aides were not included among the aides laid off, and Hermann emphasized that the district would consider larger class sizes before laying off any bilingual aides. In a district and city with a high Latino presence, about 1,300 of the district’s 4,780 students are enrolled in bilingual classes, and about one-third of those students have limited English skills.

The board’s longstanding goal to keep class sizes at a maximum of 25 students each was altered last year, with the addition of two to four more students per classroom. That could increase by another one or two students for a maximum of 31 students in some classes. Upper-grade levels would feel the greatest effects of this increase.

About one-third of a reserve fund saved over the years will cover the remaining $500,000 in cuts. However, Hermann said that if “the state comes through with bad things, we’ll really have to hit on that reserve.”