Boston could lose hundreds of teaching posts

School officials prepare for worst in preliminary talks on budget

Anticipating sharp reductions in state subsidies because of the stumbling economy, Boston public school officials are identifying tens of millions in potential budget cuts that would eliminate hundreds of teaching positions.

The budget discussions are preliminary, but the district's finance leaders have asked school administrators to submit plans to pare projected spending as much as 15 percent. In light of increasingly gloomy fiscal forecasts, the district needs to prepare for the worst, officials said yesterday.

"All signs seem to indicate that this will be an extremely challenging budget process, a kind we haven't seen in many years," said Christopher M. Horan, a spokesman for the School Department.

The district's current budget is $833 million, and officials say that contractual pay raises alone for next year will increase that total by $30 million, said John McDonough, the schools' chief financial officer. But state leaders, confronted with projected declines in tax revenues, have warned cities and towns to expect a good deal less in assistance from Beacon Hill.

The combination could produce a shortfall of an estimated $100 million, potentially forcing the district to eliminate several hundred staff positions, McDonough said. When the district faced its last cuts in state aid in 2004, 700 positions were eliminated, McDonough said. Salaries constitute 65 percent of overall spending.

Richard Stutman, head of the Boston Teachers Union, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Earlier this month, Salvatore F. DiMasi, the speaker of the state House of Representatives, said communities should brace for cuts of up to 10 percent in state aid next year. More recently, Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray said Governor Deval Patrick's administration will not rule out cuts to local aid in its effort to reduce spending by an estimated $750 million.

"We've looked to that as general guidance," McDonough said in assessing the impact of local aid cuts. "It's a moving target, particularly during an economic downcycle, and there's little information to make assumptions on. But the message we've consistently heard is that local aid will be cut this year."

The Boston School Department receives about one-fifth of its budget from the state's primary educational assistance program, known as Chapter 70, so substantial cuts could force the district to eliminate hundreds of positions.

"Those restraints that we normally feel bound by, we have to think differently this year," he said.

The district will collect budgets from individual schools in mid-January and submit the district's budget to the School Committee in February. The School Department will not cut spending across the board, but base budgets on the size of the school, level, and specific needs.

The district's central offices plan to reduce spending more substantially than the schools, McDonough said.

In October, Boston leaders instituted a city hiring freeze and ordered a comprehensive review of department budgets. In November, the School Committee closed six elementary schools as a cost-cutting measure.

Dot Joyce, spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said the city will be unable to make the needed spending cuts without asking the School Department to do its share. The public schools represent about one-third of the city's budget.

"Everything has to be on the table," she said.