The Salem-Keizer School District is planning budget cuts that would cause schools to lose 120 positions but it remains unclear how deep reductions would be in Keizer schools.
The plan aims to cut $23 million in expected spending next year, driven by declining student enrollment. Between 2021 and 2027 the district expects to lose 3,900 students, and Superintendent Andrea Castañeda said it expects to lose 1,000 next year.
Communications director Aaron Harada said in an email that Keizer schools are projected to lose 300 students at the elementary level in the next five years, and 360 students at the secondary level.
Schools receive state funding for each student, meaning schools generally lose money when enrollment declines. This year, the district has 37,000 students enrolled.
The school district expects to spend $619 million from its general fund. If the district does not make cuts, it would spend $640 million next year.
“The most important thing for our whole community to understand is that we have done everything that we know how to do, to both limit the impact on individual schools, not just in Keizer but everywhere,” Castañeda said in an interview with Keizertimes.
She said district leaders intend to ensure “there aren’t whole programs or whole strands of anything that are being reduced.”
Under the proposal, the district would save approximately $14 million by reducing staff across the district’s 65 schools. Teachers would account for 60 of the cut positions, and the other 60 would be classified staff, including instructional assistants. Some of those positions are vacant.
The district expects to better know next month what cuts will be made at each school. Castañeda said school principals are currently tasked with determining what cuts can be made based on their school’s forecasted enrollment.
“Every principal has to do their own work because they know their school community best,” Castañeda said. “Then we, in turn, work with our principals and then we’ll use that to land a refined proposal for total reductions across the system.”
The proposal is preliminary. Cuts would be incorporated into the district’s final budget, which the school board typically approves in June.
Layoffs would need to be approved by the school board if they are necessary.
Castañeda said the district could avoid layoffs by cutting positions that are already vacant. She said 80 employees across the district plan to retire at the end of this school year.
While the job cuts would vary by school, some elementary schools would gain employees as part of the district’s efforts to improve reading instruction. The gains would come from reductions in blended classrooms, where teachers instruct students in two grades.
The district plans to announce which schools would receive additional staff with the March update.
Based on feedback from the community and students, Castañeda said the plan would not make cuts to school programs for career and technology, music, athletics, fine arts or dual language programs.
Outside of schools, $9 million in cuts would be made at the district level.
Staff reductions would account for $1.2 million of the budget cuts, affecting seven classified positions, one licensed position and one administrative position.
Slowing the pace of replacing old school buses would save $3 million, which would leave students riding buses without air conditioning for longer.
Castañeda said a majority of the buses in the district do not have air conditioning.
Cuts to office operational expenses and professional services would account for $2 million, and its budget for office technology and devices would be reduced by $1.3 million.
NEWS TIP? Contact reporter Krista Kroiss at [email protected].
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