FILLMORE : Schools Budget OKd With $400,000 Cut

Fillmore school board members have approved a $13-million budget that slashes more than $400,000 from supplemental academic programs and school maintenance.

No jobs will be eliminated during the 1992-93 school year, trustees decided at the Fillmore Unified School District board meeting this week. However, teachers will forgo a cost-of-living salary increase if the district does not have a budget surplus at the end of the coming school year.

Many of the cuts were accomplished by asking school principals to trim their operations by giving up programs that were not bare-bones necessities, district officials said.

“Something has to give. We can’t keep doing this to our employees,” board member Barbara Mayfield said.

Among the cuts were $9,000 to an elementary school counseling program called Special Friends, and $18,000 that was to be used to update social studies curriculum. The size of classes in a high school program for Spanish speakers making the transition to all English classes, which had been smaller than average, will be increased.

All supplies for the high school pool were cut, spending on an asbestos removal program was reduced from $10,000 to $5,000, and new furniture and other planned equipment purchases were canceled. District officials said they took a conservative approach to the budget this year because final figures for state funding would not be available until later this summer.