L.A. Schools Chief Suggests Cutting 500-Plus Administration Jobs

Trying to close a yawning budget deficit without laying off teachers, Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Roy Romer on Thursday recommended cutting more than 500 jobs from central administration and the 11 local subdistrict offices.

Some of the jobs threatened in those offices, however, provide services directly to students, such as in nursing and in support staff for special education.

The proposed job losses, which would come from a combination of layoffs and elimination of vacant positions, plus other savings, would trim $69 million from an estimated deficit of $500 million in the 2004-05 budget.

Each of the local subdistricts would be cut 20%, while most central administration division cuts would range from 10% to 37%.

“There are no teacher layoffs and no increase in class size,” Romer told the school board as it began several days of hearings on the superintendent’s proposed budget, which is expected to total about $5 billion.

“There will be layoffs” in other positions, Romer added. “It’s going to be painful, but we’ve got to do it.”

The board is scheduled to decide on the bulk of the cuts next Thursday, so the district can meet a March 15 deadline required for notifying certain groups of employees of possible layoffs.

The 750,000-student district employs about 75,000 people, nearly 50,000 of them teachers.

Romer’s proposed budget would cover $444 million of the deficit.

In addition to the $69 million, the district could scrape together $144 million by refinancing debt and using other one-time money sources.

Other savings would include $61 million from cutting employee work hours, and $71 million in reductions in such things as campus maintenance and support programs for new teachers.

The proposed budget also assumes the district will be successful in its current negotiations with employee unions to save $25 million in benefits costs.

However, after all that, the school board still would have to find $56 million more to balance its spending program before the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

In addition, the uncertainty of the state’s fiscal situation could mean still more cuts lie ahead.

Several board members said they were concerned about making the cuts before knowing what the state would do to school budgets.

And board President Jose Huizar said the panel still would need to correct a “structural imbalance” so that the district does not have to repeatedly rely on one-time sources of money to meet its bills.

John Perez, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, which has criticized administrative costs, urged the board to look more closely for savings in that area and to spare nurses and other jobs scheduled for elimination.