NEWPORT BEACH/COSTA MESA : Schools to Lose 5 Administrators to Cuts

Five administrative positions in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District will fall to the budget ax in the next school year as part of a program of cost-cutting to make up a multimillion-dollar shortfall due to losses in the Orange County bond pool.

Eliminating the jobs will save the district $395,000, Supt. Mac Bernd said in announcing the cut Thursday. It is unclear whether employees would be dismissed or offered other positions within the district, he added. The current budget is about $88 million.

“Basically, the positions are being eliminated. So if they have seniority rights, they may find a position somewhere else in this district,” he said.

The positions cut are director of planning and program development, assistant food services director, associate director of data processing, director of communications and data processing coordinator.

“We tried to look at what positions would have the least impact on the delivery of classroom education,” Bernd said. Dale Woolley, director of planning and program development, said his position entails doing enrollment projections and overseeing school psychologists and managers of divisions handling classroom instruction and assessment, special education, adult education and federal projects.

“Those are the areas that if I’m not replaced, the superintendent will have to figure out where to reassign” duties, Woolley said.

Communications director Nadine Wilck seemed to take the cut philosophically.

“It’s unfortunate, but I certainly understand it,” she said. “We’re in difficult times here and tough decisions have to be made.”