PORT ANGELES — School Board members expressed far more reluctance to cut sports programs than they were elementary music education at a work session Monday night, as they began hashing out where to cut $2.1 million from the unbalanced 2010-2011 budget.
But it was the wide range of cuts in full-time-equivalent employee positions that had teachers union president Barry Burnett worried at the end of the nearly two-hour session.
“We have some really serious concerns about some of the items,” said Burnett, president of the 244-member Port Angeles Education Association.
“Some of [the cuts] obviously involved bargaining contracts. Teachers are very concerned about what might come from the board and the district’s actions as a result of this meeting, and we will be paying very close attention.”
62 prioritized cuts
Examining a list of 62 prioritized cuts, School Board members said they needed to further consider whether it is worth cutting two middle school volleyball and basketball teams and high school C teams.
The same was true for cutting middle school sports altogether, which would save $106,451 annually.
And there was nary a word of support for eliminating high school football, the last item on the list of 62 potential cuts offered by the 18-member school district Fiscal Advisory Committee in an April 12 report.
But no one spoke up for elementary general music, a $310,969 program staffed by four full-time-equivalent teachers.
Still, that doesn’t mean it won’t be funded, because the board did not make any formal decisions.
The directors will do that at their 7 p.m. April 26 board meeting at the administration building, 215 E. Fourth St., where they also will take comments from the audience before wielding the knife.
The list of potential cuts can be viewed and printed out at www.portangelesschools.org.
Board members did not take any public comments Tuesday night in the tiny meeting room at the district’s Central Services Building as Jim Schwob, district director of business and operations, stood at the podium while School Board members went down the 62-item list one by one.
Teacher cuts
Board member have already said they will cut 4.5 full-time-equvalent elementary positions and 3 secondary teachers.
Each of those positions costs about $80,000 each, Schwob said.
The reason: The district has suffered an enrollment decline.
The numbers: 3,891 students were enrolled as of April 1 compared with 3,957 April 1, 2009, a drop of 66 students in 12 months.
The board has to cut more than $2.1 million from its proposed budget, a lesser amount by $350,566 than what the district thought it had to cut after state legislators balanced the state budget and covered a $2.8 billion deficit.
Board member Sarah Methner said she was dead set against cutting middle school volleyball, and board members questioned whether middle-school intramural sports should take the place of school-against-school competition.
They also wanted to see how other high schools are managing their sports programs and C-level teams.
They said, too, that a suggestion to cut classified staff from 40 hours to 37.5 for a savings of $47,632 was “a collective bargaining issue,” as Superintendent Jane Pryne put it.
When it came time to discuss elementary band, which would save $127,880 and cut 1.37 full-time-equivalent positions, there were no board members to sing the program’s virtues.
The same was true of elementary strings, with which costs the district of $54,000.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
