School Board OKs $4-Billion Budget; Deadlocks on Cuts : Education: Members delay decision on $10 million more in reductions. Officials say all facets of L.A. district will suffer under new plan.

Unable to break a deadlock over how to make the remaining $10 million in cuts required to balance its budget, the Los Angeles school board Monday adopted a tentative $4-billion budget and ordered Supt. Bill Anton and his staff to find ways to make the additional reductions.

The district must submit a balanced budget to the county by Sunday, but its final spending plan is not due until September. The $10 million in unspecified reductions will serve as a “place holder” in the budget. That figure may change, depending on how much the state allocates the district and how much is left in district accounts when the fiscal year ends June 30, said Henry Jones, district budget director.

Because enrollment growth will not be matched by increases in state funding, the district will probably spend less per student next year than it does now.

“We will have substantially less money to operate this school system, in spite of the fact that we’ll have 15,000 more children to serve,” said board President Jackie Goldberg.

After weeks of deliberations, the board was able to winnow its $241-million deficit to $10 million by taking chunks out of virtually every facet of education in the nation’s second-largest school system.

The board deadlocked 3 to 3 on whether the remaining $10 million should come from employee salaries or from administrative costs.

School campuses--largely spared when the board cut almost $400 million last year--were hit hard, as the board cut positions for teachers, librarians and counselors and reduced the money schools spend for classroom supplies, cleaning and maintenance.

The district’s administrative staff was pared by almost 300 positions, and all 59,000 district employees suffered heavy economic hits. The board approved pay cuts, unpaid furloughs of two to five days and a freeze on raises--all subject to negotiations with employee unions, but likely to take effect this fall.

More than 1,500 positions were eliminated--including about 1,250 for teachers and administrators who worked in classrooms or management positions--as the superintendent decentralized administration and the board raised class sizes and changed the district’s staffing formulas to assign fewer teachers to most secondary schools.

Even programs and agencies deemed sacrosanct were ordered to share the burden, as the board approved a 20% cut in the district’s athletic budget and a freeze on filling vacant police officer positions.

“In my 12 years of being on the Board of Education, nothing has been as difficult as this year,” board member Roberta Weintraub said. “It’s as if the whole center of the school district is coming down around us. At this point, we’re managing the agony and that’s about it.”

It is not clear how many teachers will be laid off, after retirements and resignations are factored in. Because the board backed down from an earlier plan to lay off up to 980 tenured employees, those not rehired will come from the ranks of probationary and temporary teachers, most with less than three years’ experience.

The biggest component of the budget package--$50 million in employee compensation cuts--will not take effect immediately because the details must be worked out with the unions. Other cuts subject to union approval, such as unpaid furloughs and the freeze on raises, will also be deferred during the negotiating process.

The district can impose the cuts without union approval if negotiations break down and an arbitrator is brought in--which could happen by the time the budget is adopted in September, Jones said.