Proposed budget for Portland schools hinges on tax increase, drops 70 teaching posts

kindergarten.april.25.2011.JPGView full sizePortland Superintendent Carole Smith's proposed 2011-12 budget would maintain full-day kindergarten classes, such as this one at Lent School in Southeast Portland.

Portland Public Schools Superintendent Carole Smith made it clear Monday as she proposed a $464 million spending plan for next school year that she is banking on voters approving

She gave the school board a detailed plan for how she would run Oregon’s largest school district on almost exactly the same amount of money next year as this year.

No employee would get a cost-of-living raise, about 70 teaching jobs would be cut, and central administrative departments would take hits of 5 percent to 10 percent, she said, presenting details in two bound books totaling nearly 400 pages.

But the district would hang onto prekindergarten and full-day kindergarten, get new middle school science books plus teacher training in math and science instruction, and continue to offer a guaranteed core set of offerings in every school.

All that hinges on a $19 million infusion from a higher “local-option levy” property tax before voters on the May 17

ballot. Taxpayers currently pay $1.25 for every $1,000 of assessed property value to bolster local school operating budgets; the school board is asking that the rate rise to $1.99 per $1,000.

If voters say no, Smith and the school board will have to adopt her “plan B” budget — one that is sketched out on just one page inside the mammoth budget documents.

It would require eliminating another 200 of the 2,800 positions now held by teachers, counselors, librarians and assistant principals — nearly 10 percent of those positions at most schools, Smith said.

“Class sizes would go up, we would lose electives,” she said,

more elementary classes would have to be a mixture of two grade levels and some small schools might have to close.

But almost none of that is spelled out in writing.

The one-page outline of her "Budget B" says 145 teachers and librarians would be cut, with the heaviest hit to middle schools, and 54 support staffers including educational assistants, secretaries, counselors and vice principals would be cut. But the page also says those figures are designed to "illustrate the scope" of cuts that would occur and are not necessarily what the superintendent would recommend.

Smith instead decided to wait until after the vote and come up with specific ways to balance the budget without a tax increase only if that is necessary.

If voters turn down the tax increase, "we'll be back at the table coming up with specifics," Smith said.

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