IRVINE : Trustee Urges District to Prepare for Cuts

New school board member Hank Adler called for immediate action from Irvine Unified School District officials to plan for cuts in programs and employees in light of the county fiscal crisis.

“It happened,” Adler said Monday. “The time for denial is over.”

He said the district should plan for a potential $30-million loss and urged school board members to eliminate their $400-a-month stipend.

But his 20-minute presentation angered school board member Mike Regele, who said it is too soon to talk of dismantling the county’s premier school district when the extent of the losses are not yet known.

“Whether we have a $30-million problem--it’s an irresponsible thing to say,” Regele said. “I do not know that, in fact, anybody can demonstrate we have a $30-million problem. And to scare our staff and the community the way they’ve just been scared is reprehensible.”

Adler, a certified public accountant elected in November on the promise to take a “fresh look” at school district financing, said his intention is not to scare anybody, but to communicate a sense of urgency.

“We need to deal with these issues,” Adler said.

He also suggested that the district could offer a choice of budget decisions to voters in a special election.

Trustees will consider budget cuts, the elimination of board member stipends and will review all projects at the board’s next meeting on Jan. 3.

The school district will meet all expenses including debt payments through the first week of January, according to Paul Reed, deputy superintendent. If the district has access to tax revenues deposited by the county into a separate account since the bankruptcy filing, Reed said Irvine Unified will meet all expenses through March.

That still leaves nearly three months of the school year unfunded. And Reed has no answers for how the district will pay off a $54.5-million debt due in June.

School board President Tom Burnham said it appears inevitable that the district will have to determine what basic services are legally required, then make tough choices about what else it can afford.

“We all continue to hold out hope that we will get all of our money back,” Burnham said. “But the reality is that there will probably be a profound change in our revenues.”