SEQUIM — The School Board didn’t get much help from the public Monday night on deciding which areas of the 2004-2005 budget it may have to cut.
An advertised Sequim School District public hearing soliciting input on $1.25 million in cuts — which may be necessary in the event of a second maintenance and operations levy request failure in May — drew fewer than 25 people.
Of those, only a handful spoke publicly to the board after Superintendent Garn Christensen laid out a laundry list of potential areas where cuts could be made.
“This isn’t a struggle between Garn and the community, or the School Board and the community,” Christensen told audience members who gathered in the Sequim Middle School cafeteria.
“This is a decision we will all have to make.”
Instead of proposing $1 million-plus in cuts that would follow another levy failure, Christensen provided board members with $2.2 million in examples of cuts in every eligible area not required by law to be funded.
That included everything from certain academic support programs, extracurricular activities, nursing services and janitorial services to moving district administrative staff from its current quarters into other school facilities and cutting back on bus washing.
