By Sara Ballenger

Town Crier File Photo

Officials consider cutting $4.5 million from budget in wake of parcel-tax defeat

The Los Altos School District’s Budget Review Committee met May 2 to recommend budget cuts totaling $4.5 million, to offset the district’s projected deficit for the 2002-03 school year.

The committee presented the list to the Board of Trustees at its regular meeting May 6, prior to the Town Crier going to press. The committee also presented a priority list for possible restorations. The Board of Trustees decided on the formal budget cuts at the same meeting.

To get updated information on the board’s decisions, check our Web site at www.losaltosonline.com or our Los Altos area newsstands. Look for a complete update in our May 15 issue.

Budget Review Committee members selected the proposed cuts from a list of “brainstormed ideas for balancing the 2002-03 budget,” said Randy Kenyon, assistant superintendent of business services. A majority of the committee had to agree on each item to place on the list.

One of the biggest-ticket items on the list was the reopening of the district’s seventh elementary school, Covington, slated for August.

“That’s the budget item of not spending the $350,000 in operational costs that’s in the budget to open a school next year,” said Superintendent Marge Gratiot. “That’s the budget-balancing piece which is the first step in the decision. It will affect where teachers are assigned and is urgent in terms of staffing.”

The other question is what to do with Covington’s campus, now being renovated. The district’s funding for construction does not come out of its general budget, but from a bond measure passed in 1998.

“The decision on whether a camp school uses Covington is a second step in the decision process,” Gratiot said. “With three schools under construction, you have to look at how complete and finished sites would be at the time we would need them. Even though Covington can open, in terms of enough classrooms for students, there might be peripheral buildings that might not be finished.”

Gratiot added that a neighborhood school’s sense of community is what makes it a school, rather than where the school is physically located.

“Springer school, staff and kids, whether located at Covington or Blach, is really the community. The facilities, although important, are not as important as community,” she said.

As for what would happen to the job of newly appointed Covington Principal Linda Eckols, Gratiot said it is a decision the board will have to make in the future.

Another big-ticket item on the proposed cut list was to eliminate class-size reduction in the elementary schools, leaving a student-per-teacher ratio of 30-to-one. This would save the district approximately $1.276 million.

“We have to cut something first and then look at restoring it,” Gratiot said. “It’s one of the first things I would like to reinstate. I am optimistic that the Los Altos Educational Foundation and Save Our Schools will be raising funds to help us with class-size issues.”