City Schools Trustees May Add to Salary Cuts : Education: A special meeting will be held by the board to reconsider ways to balance 1992-93 budget.

Unwilling to eliminate or severely reduce popular student programs, San Diego city schools trustees are moving toward more cutbacks in employee salaries as a way of balancing the budget, board President Ann Armstrong said Thursday.

The school board is also looking at further reducing non-classroom services such as maintenance.

The rethinking by trustees comes less than three days after they balked at eliminating elementary music, basic sex education and career counseling as well as reducing nurses, high school athletics, maintenance and secondary school counseling.

The board will meet Tuesday to consider once again the $21.8 million in budget cuts required because of California’s financial shortage.

The special 9:30 a.m. meeting comes one day before the deadline for deciding how deep to cut salaries and other personnel issues for the 1992-93 budget year that begins Wednesday. The board had not been scheduled to meet again until July 14.

“I think that, because of the way things are looking,” that we will consider additional salary cuts and other budget items that are away from the students, Armstrong, who scheduled the meeting, told The Times Thursday.

“Before last Tuesday’s meeting, I wasn’t so sure,” she said, referring to the marathon 9 1/2-hour session.

“But, after that meeting, I really think now there is (no desire) among the board to eliminate those things that our whole educational system is set up to do.

“We’re only here because we want to educate kids.”

In Armstrong’s view, the board, in order to save those programs recommended for slashes or cuts by schools Supt. Tom Payzant, will have to vote additional salary reductions for all employees. That could amount to as much as an additional 2% to 2.5% above the 2.67% in across-the-board salary cuts already being planned as a result of earlier board action, Armstrong said Thursday.

Each 1% cut in across-the-board salaries saves about $4.2 million. The board at Tuesday’s meeting rolled up about $12.8 million in tentative cuts, out of $21.8 million needed----$6.9 million from salary cuts, $4 million by changing the way health insurance premiums are paid, $500,000 from fewer clerks in high schools, $463,000 from less sex and drug counseling, $800,000 from fewer new textbooks and $100,000 from fewer night police patrols.

“I really hope that the public, and that the school administrators who have said they would take further salary cuts as a way to protect programs, will come and support us on Tuesday,” Armstrong said.

But trustee John De Beck said Thursday that, although he agrees that the board seems determined to avoid many program cuts, he will strongly oppose any more salary reductions for teachers.

De Beck would, however, be willing to cut principals’ salaries up to 10% further by cutting back their work year from 12 months to 11 months, reducing the number of vice principals and putting less into deferred maintenance despite the sorry shape of many schools.

“I will personally not vote any more teacher pay cuts,” De Beck, a retired teacher, said Thursday. “I want all people to share the pain. I’ll go into sports if I have to before asking teachers to cut more, even though that hurts kids, because it is after-school” activity.

“I realize that there weren’t the votes (to reduce) nurses, counselors and those things last Tuesday, but we haven’t talked out all the options. Maybe we’ll make partial cuts in these areas.”

De Beck will ask his colleagues to once again consider changing starting and ending times at schools to save up to $1.6 million in busing. The board has opposed that plan because of the short notice parents would be given on the time changes.

Both De Beck and Armstrong said Thursday that they will back an increase in class size by one-half a student, a move that would save $2.8 million, despite the extreme reluctance with which Payzant made the recommendation.

Other board members could not be reached Thursday, although trustee Sue Braun on Tuesday vigorously opposed any cuts in nurses, sports, music or counseling.

The San Diego Teachers Assn. is expected to oppose strongly any further salary action affecting its 5,000 members. All final salary cuts are subject to collective bargaining, and the district and its unions are in the midst of negotiations for new contracts that expire Tuesday night.

Those existing contracts would continue to be in effect as bargaining continues past expiration dates. The board, by acting before July 1, can lower existing salary schedules unilaterally pending the outcome of negotiations, which will set final levels.

Should the board not act by July 1, however, there would be no legal way to set salaries for the 1992-93 year lower than existing levels, costing trustees any chance to balance their budget through reduced paychecks.

Spokesmen for the teachers’ association were not available for comment late Thursday.