Flying blindly without the solidity of a finalized state budget, Asst. Supt. Ali Delawalla told the School Board last night that $5.8 million would have to be shaved from Culver City’s budget in the next two years — but that figure may be liquid in a good way.
With a streak of creative planning, said Board Vice President Scott Zeidman, the gap could be painlessly closed almost to the level of swatting at a housefly.
“Look at it this way,” said the Board’s chief strategist and idea generator. “We have done a hiring freeze. We have done furloughs. We have frozen non-essential purchases. We also cut $786,000 previously.
“As a result of money that came in under K-through-3 class size reduction, an adjustment of rent we are receiving from one of the other schools, interest income, facilities permit income as well as special education money that came in, we are able to recoup $1.5 million.
“Add together the $1.5 million with the $786,000 and the about a million dollars in savings, divide by two, and we are only in the hole $2.5 million over two years.”
There is at least one other tempting but controversial card to play, furloughs, a dated term that has become the warmest word in the lexicon of California educators the last two years.
Board members calculate that if the present compromised schedule of five furlough days a year were extended for two years, the revenue savings would total a hefty $2 million. That would shrink the gap to $250,000 each of the next two years.
However, if a sixth furlough day were added, the estimated savings would be $1.2 million a year, $2.4 million over, slicing the gap to relative pocket change, $50,000 each year.
Advocates of the stark reductions contend their plan would obviate the need for layoffs or for cutting programs, and therefore students would be virtually unaffected — the most desirable of all goals.
