Santa Rosa schools consider staff cuts to address $12 million deficit

The Santa Rosa City Schools board Wednesday night reviewed a plan that would cut next year’s budget by $4.56 million, including elimination of 13 classroom teaching jobs, while holding overall class size to an average of 28 students.

The teaching cuts, which officials expect will be made entirely by attrition, will save the financially challenged district $949,000.

“This doesn’t look so bad, so I’m hopeful,” board president Jenni Klose said. “A lot of these changes are really going to make us a more efficient district.”

The board is scheduled to vote on the budget plan at a special meeting on Wednesday.

The county’s largest school district is under pressure to eliminate a $4 million deficit in each of the next two years, Superintendent Diann Kitamura said. Overall, the district faces a $12 million shortfall spread over the next three years.

Some 100 people attended the session.

Kitamura thanked administrators, teachers, staff and community members for a “real strong effort” to identify budget cuts this month, including a series of round table meetings conducted at district schools.

District officials have attributed the cash crunch to a combination of rising staff costs, state funding shortfalls and multimillion-dollar accounting errors discovered last year.

Operating on an annual budget of $180 million, the district employs about 1,600 people in 23 schools attended by 16,400 students.

Board member Bill Carle said he supported the planned cuts at this time, but warned they could, over time, “make it harder for kids to get the classes they need.”

Over the next month or two, Carle said, “we’ll see what impacts there are on schools.”

“This is a miserable situation to be in,” board member Frank Pugh said. “We take no joy in what we have to do.”

In addition to the 13 teaching jobs, the plan would eliminate eight jobs in the restorative justice program, including four jobs that are currently vacant.

Board member Evelyn Anderson said the program was “something I wish we could have more of.”

The proposed cuts also include a $1.53 million reduction in the purchase of books and instructional materials.

The district’s cash crunch emerged over the past year, starting with approval of a budget in June that showed a $4 million deficit and prompted a warning in September from Sonoma County Office of Education officials, who monitor local school district budgets.

The letter cautioned that “continued deficit spending of this magnitude cannot be sustained and will threaten the district’s fiscal stability.”

County schools Superintendent Steve Herrington’s letter said the district appeared overstaffed, noting that it had added 50 positions in 2016 as enrollment dropped by 100 students.

Kitamura said Wednesday that enrollment is expected to drop by 134 students next year and that staffing must be based on student numbers.

Contributing to the red ink were accounting errors by district finance staff who failed to properly budget for about $3 million the district spent on substitute teachers, overtime and hourly extra assignments for teachers and other district employees.

Two of the district’s top financial executives - Carolyn Bischof and Steve Eichman - left their posts after the mistakes were revealed.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@guykovner.