Cary District 26 approves $3.2 million in reductions

The Cary Elementary District 26 school board this week approved $3.2 million in budget reductions for the 2011-2012 school year, but much of that figure hedges on the outcome of ongoing contract negotiations.

The board voted unanimously Monday to the Tier I cuts, which include eliminating 5½ full-time teaching positions, as well as cost savings through supply reductions and reinstating services in house.

More than two-thirds of the budget reductions, however, are out of the board’s hands. The list includes $2.5 million in wage and benefit concessions from the teachers union, which the board cannot formalize until the board and the Cary Education Association reach an agreement.

“As we discussed on Monday night, we are approving 14 items and we recognize one of those items ... has to be mutually agreed to,” board member Jason Larry said. “It is not something that can be institutionalized and executed the next day like the other items.”

Administrators revised the number of teaching positions to be cut from 8½ to 5½ after school board members expressed concern that classes in the kindergarten and first-grade levels would swell to 35 students.

The new cuts would save the district $423,000, about $230,000 less than the initial proposal.

“Those are the specific grades where you want to keep class sizes down given the nature of the beast, if you will” school board President Christopher Spoerl said. “But they were the ones bearing the brunt of it. If a student falls behind in those grades, it has a ripple effect through their education.”

The reductions are part of the district’s plan to trim $5.5 million from its budget over the next four years. If negotiations fail and the district is unable to reach $2.5 million in concessions, the district will implement Tier II reductions. Those include closing another school and eliminating an additional eight full-time teaching positions for a savings of $2.1 million.

The board could approve the Tier II reductions at its March 28 board meeting if negotiations are not completed in order to balance the budget.

“The action that we have taken communicates to the stakeholders — the parents, teachers and students — that we are committed to working very hard with the union toward those concessions,” Larry said. “The union recognizes that and are meeting regularly to work toward that.”