LA schools face $268M budget gap for 2011-12

The Associated Press
Posted: 10/05/2010 02:12:58 PM PDT
Updated: 10/05/2010 02:47:31 PM PDT


The Los Angeles school district faces a $268 million budget deficit for the next academic year that could affect as many as 3,300 jobs, the superintendent said Tuesday.
Superintendent Ramon Cortines said he was proposing to partially cover the shortfall by using $103 million in federal education jobs funding and reducing expenses by $5 million at central headquarters and district offices.

The remainder, though, could come from employee givebacks.

The district intends to discuss several options with unions to avoid layoffs. The possibilities include pay cuts, furlough days or a combination of furloughs and salary freezes, Cortines said.

The superintendent noted the budget figures were preliminary because the state has not yet released final funding amounts.

United Teachers Los Angeles said Cortines' statements were a scare tactic designed to extract more concessions from employees.

The union said when state funding is finalized, it is willing to negotiate and will also present its own proposals.

Cortines said the deficit could widen if the district loses special education and other federal funding for low-income students.


http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci....

Amazing how $268 million seems like such a trivial sum these days.

Hey, you can indoctrinate a lot of illegal aliens in socialism for $268 million, don't knock it!

Quote:

... and reducing expenses by $5 million at central headquarters and district offices

That amounts to 1.9% of the shortfall. It's nice to see they're making the difficult sacrifices "for the children"

Didn't they just open a new school that cost something like $500M?