$3.7 MILLION UP FOR CUTS DISTRICT TO MULL TRIMS TO MATCH SHORTFALL.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Palmdale School District trustees will consider making more than $3.7 million in cuts to address a shortfall in next year's budget.

The proposed cuts include eliminating bus routes for middle school students, leaving vacant three counseling positions, and using other sources of funding to pay for employee salaries.

``The 1.84 percent (cost of living adjustment) that the state is proposing to fund will not cover our costs to roll forward current benefits, our step-and-column increases, our workers' comp increases,'' Deputy Superintendent Lori Ordway-Peck said. ``We have a deficit between revenues and expenditures that we must address.''

The board is scheduled to vote on the proposed cuts at its meeting today.

District administrators initially thought they would have to slash $4.1 million from the 2004-05 budget, but that amount was lowered because of additional funding coming in.

The $428,000 in extra funding included an insurance rebate, interest savings from restructuring debt, and management opting for a higher vision plan co-pay, a district staff report said.

The district last year cut $12.5 million from its 2003-04 budget and switched from a multitrack year-round calendar to a traditional schedule to save money.

The district is not planning any layoffs but is proposing to scale back work schedules for some employees to coincide with the 10 1/2-month traditional schedule and to cut hours of others.

``We went to traditional so there are children in school 10 1/2 months of the year. Some positions were not adjusted. Some were 12-month positions. Some of these cuts represent those kinds of adjustments,'' Ordway-Peck said.

Palmdale already has cut $690,000 of the $3.7 million by adjusting work schedules of instructional aides and child nutrition workers, and eliminating the equivalent of 2 1/2 maintenance positions.

More than $919,000 would be saved by using federal Title I funds to pay for library and technical positions, the report said.

The district also is proposing to make fewer middle school students eligible for bus rides to and from school by increasing the walking distance inside which no bus service will be provided from one mile to a mile and a half.

That would save the district $450,000.

Two counselors will retire at the end of the year, and there is one open counseling position budgeted for the proposed Desert Willow School. Freezing these three positions will result in savings of $310,000, the report said.

The district's budget advisory committee had come up with a list of recommended cuts that included cutting five assistant principal positions for a savings of $555,703 and eliminating the elementary school music program to save $319,000, but district administrators are not recommending those for board approval.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com