MJUSD URGED TO MAKE JOB CUTS.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

NORTH EDWARDS - A state budget review team recommends cutting jobs, eliminating bonuses, and reducing or capping health benefits coverage to get Muroc Joint Union School District out of a budget crisis.

The team also recommended the district reduce utility usage, find ways to slash cafeteria expenses and even consolidate campuses - which it didn't specify - to erase the district's $1.3 million annual deficit by the 2003-04 school year.

``It will take very definitive and determined action on the part of the district. It really should be done in a collaborative teamwork atmosphere,'' said Bruce Auld, a team member who is deputy superintendent and chief business officer at the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District. ``It has been done many times across the state. I would have full confidence that it can be done.''

Auld and two other officials visited the district last week and reviewed financial documents and interviewed staff. The team gave an oral report of its findings at a special meeting Wednesday.

District administrators will now come back with a cost-cutting plan for the board to consider at the Nov. 14 meeting.

The two other members are Lancaster School District Superintendent Steve Gocke and Betty Richards, program manager of district financial services of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools office.

The three were named to the budget review panel after Kern County officials in September rejected Muroc's $22.4 million budget because of the deficit. If the district does not turn in an acceptable budget by Nov. 30, Kern County will impose one on the district, district officials said.

The team's recommendations echoed some elements contained in a proposed recovery plan put forward by the district in September that promised to erase the $1.3 million deficit in two years.

The plan included provisions for increasing class sizes and closing down Branch Elementary School, which is on Edwards Air Force Base, but trustees set it aside after parents and teachers objected.

The budget review team said the district must adopt a revised budget that shows a budget deficit of no more than $800,000 for the 2001-02 school year, have a projected deficit of no more than $300,000 for the 2002-03 school year, and no projected deficit for the 2003-04 school year.

The team recommended ``significant'' reductions in both teaching and non-teaching staff. Superintendent Bertha Boullion said the team told the board Wednesday that the district is overstaffed by 19 teachers or other certificated staff and five non-teaching workers.

The team said all district workers should forgo this year's salary bonus, which would save the district about $500,000. The union that represents non-teaching employees voted earlier to give up bonuses, but the district and the teachers union failed to agree on a proposal to have teachers give them up.

The district's health insurance costs for employees must be reduced or capped at the 2001-02 rates, the team also said. The district now pays the entire premium - $9,300 a year per full-time employee, Boullion said.

``The benefits package is the highest in the county,'' Boullion said.

Boullion said utility costs, which covers water and energy bills, could be reduced by closing schools and asking staff to remove personal appliances such as coffee pots and microwaves from offices and classrooms.

``After a football game, half the lights should be shut off, then every 15 minutes another bank goes off so people get the idea to go home. Those lights eat up a lot of electricity,'' Boullion said.

The budget outlook is becoming more bleak with news of the strong possibility that the state will not provide a cost-of-living adjustment funding for schools next school year.

Not only Muroc will be impacted. Antelope Valley Union High School District Superintendent Robert Girolamo said his district is projecting a $2 million to $4 million budget deficit next year because of no COLA funding.