A School Closure and 100 Layoffs Are in the Budget Forecast for SVUSD

Saddleback Valley Unified School District could close an elementary school and eliminate over 100 jobs for teachers, library clerks and other positions under a worst-case budget scenario for the 2011-12 school year.

The SVUSD board will meet Tuesday to vote whether to authorize the district to issue pink slips to at least 72 teachers and 30 classified employees. Among those being considered for layoffs are at least 18 elementary school teachers and 49 secondary school teachers, an elementary school principal, plant foreman, six LAAP instructional assistants and seven library media clerks.

The exact number of employees who would receive pink slips is unclear, since many of the jobs targeted for elimination are part time. But they add up to the equivalent of 72.3 full-time teaching positions and 30.27 full-time classified positions, according to the proposed resolution that board will be asked to consider.

The district employs 1,469 certificated employees (teaching jobs) and 1,357 classified employees, district officials said.

“We have to prepare if the perfect storm comes to pass,” said district spokesperson Tammy Blakely, “such as if the governor’s initiative doesn’t pass or doesn’t get on the ballot.”

By law, the school district must notify teachers who are at risk of layoff by March 15. Often, many of those teachers are rehired after a state budget is passed and the district has a clearer picture of its finances for the coming year.

This year, that financial picture is even more up in the air because the state government is facing a $25-billion shortfall. Gov. Jerry Brown has asked for a measure to be put on the June ballot that would extend temporary sales, motor vehicle and income taxes to close some of that budget gap.

But that measure has yet to be placed on the ballot, let alone win approval, so the Orange County Department of Education has told districts to plan for a worst-case scenario. In SVUSD, that would mean a loss of $330 per student, or $10 million, according to district officials.

Right now, the district expects to spend $5,191 per student in the 2011-12 school year but would see that number fall to $4,861 per student if Brown’s measure fails, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, Geri Partida said in February. In the 2007-08 school year, the district received $5,785 per student.

While many of the teaching jobs targeted for elimination would be restored under a better financial picture, the district is looking at closing an elementary school not due to onetime budget cuts, but the ongoing issue of declining enrollment, said Blakely.

“We have to look at school closures as part of that long-term planning. That’s something we have to look at,” she said.

At its February meeting, the board heard from the consulting firm of Eric Hall & Associates about how to set up a citizens committee to identify schools or other facilities that could be closed and eventually leased or sold to bring in revenue.

District officials have yet to identify which school might closed in the 2011-12 school year.

The district closed O’Neill Elementary in 2009 due to declining enrollment, the outcome of a contentious process that angered some Mission Viejo parents and drew a failed lawsuit from the Mission Viejo City Council.

The board meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:15pm on Tuesday, March 8, at the Education Center Board Room at 25631 Peter A. Hartman Way in Mission Viejo.