Schools wrestle with $1.8m budget deficit

Lowering the temperature in school buildings from 68 to 66 degrees is expected to put only a $13,000 dent in the deficit. (the boston globe/file 1999)

Classrooms will be colder during the school day. Vacant teaching and administrative jobs will not be filled. Funds for textbooks, library media, guidance counseling, and crossing-guard supplies will be reduced or frozen.

And yet, the proposed cuts - announced Monday at a School Committee meeting at Collins Middle School - will cover only about a quarter of the $1.8 million deficit that auditors recently discovered in the Salem public schools' budget. The shortfall was caused, school and city officials say, by a former business manager who used money for the current fiscal year to pay old bills from the previous year, and by significant underfunding of some budget items.

The $518,525 in cuts proposed Monday is only the first round. Officials predict that they will have to trim the city budget, too.

"Unfortunately, this is far from over," said Mayor Kim Driscoll, who chairs the School Committee. "There is no fat in the school budget. . . . I think everything we've talked about is 'left arm or right arm?' decisions."

She added: "This is hard, but everything from here is going to be harder."

Part of the problem, Driscoll added, is that Salem must soon set a tax rate and can't do so without unravelling the school budget, which makes up about half of Salem's financial obligations. The City Council is set to discuss the tax rate at meetings on next Thursday and Dec. 19.

Driscoll said that by then officials should have identified enough savings to satisfy the state Department of Revenue at fiscal year end, but to do so they will have to start looking citywide and not just in the school budget. She said she worries about possible layoffs, but so far no employees have been asked to leave.

Superintendent of Schools William J. Cameron Jr. said layoffs are his last resort. He is set to deliver a more comprehensive cost-cutting plan at the next School Committee meeting, which is scheduled for Dec. 17.

"It is still my intention to wring every savings we can make out of nonpersonnel items . . . [and] leave as many jobs undisturbed as possible," Cameron said Monday as he discussed the cuts during the School Committee meeting. "We're looking at expense, rather than manpower, first."

So, a needed special-education teacher will not be hired, nor will an assistant director of building services or a full-time custodian. Those jobs will save the schools $123,635. The salaries for two teaching positions also will be shifted so that they are covered by grants - giving Salem schools their largest block of savings at $113,964.

Lowering the temperature in school buildings from 68 to 66 degrees is expected to put only a $13,000 dent in the deficit.

"This would give us some savings," Cameron said, "and this temperature, we believe, is something that, if people dress appropriately, they can still work and be comfortable."

School Committee members questioned some of the cost-cutting - such as reducing textbook and contracted services expenses by $100,000 - but mostly lauded the belt-tightening measures.

"These are tough decisions. They will have an impact," said member Kevin Carr. "You did look at creative ideas and you did seek outside input."

Cameron said school officials also had considered shutting down an elementary school and relocating pupils to another facility, such as Collins Middle School, but the relocation costs and the disruption it would cause did not offset the modest savings of $20,000. Extending winter vacation a few days also would not have saved much, Cameron said, so that idea was nixed, too.

"It's been painful," Cameron said after the meeting. "But if we have to start cutting people's jobs in the middle of the school year, that's really, really distasteful."

Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.