Wake schools avoid job cuts, for now

RALEIGH -- Wake County school leaders outlined on Tuesday $11.2 million in requested budget cuts but warned that future cuts could result in employee layoffs.

The school board adopted the cuts to return $5.5 million to the state and $5.7 million to the county. Both of those cuts were requested because of budget shortfalls the state and county are experiencing. While none of the $11.2 million in cuts result in layoffs, administrators warned that losing any more money could result in employees losing their jobs.

"Our goal is to stay away from our human resources," said David Neter, the school district's chief business officer. "At some point we may not be able to. We have been for now."

Neter's warning about the difficulties in finding areas for future cuts was echoed by Superintendent Del Burns.

"If there are additional cuts, we may have to come back and look at personnel," he said.

No Wake school employee has been laid off since at least the 1990s. Wake's student growth over the past 25 years has meant that the district has always been in a hiring mode.

For now, administrators say they were able to minimize cuts on the classroom.

The cuts include:

* Returning $3.2 million from positions not filled because of student enrollment coming in by more than 2,000 fewer students than projected.

* Dipping into reserves for $2 million.

* Saving $1.8 million from freezing employee out-of-state travel, reducing operating budgets for central service departments by 3 percent and freezing filling of central service positions for 90 days.

* Making a net $1 million cut in funds for classroom materials and instructional supplies for schools.

* Returning $998,000 in unexpected funding for at-risk students.

* Reducing by $950,000 money slated for mobile units, vehicle replacements and bus purchases.

Burns said these budget reductions will limit the district's ability to deal with future cuts.

The school board had no choice about returning the state funding. It's part of $58 million in cuts that have been ordered of school districts across the state.

But the school board also chose not to fight the county commissioners over returning the $5.7 million. Commissioners had voted on Monday to ask the school board to voluntarily give back the money as part of a countywide effort to make up a projected $17 million budget shortfall.

If the school board had said no, the commissioners could have taken the money.

In return for voluntarily giving back the $5.7 million, school board members said they want commissioners to stop dictating how much money can be spent in each category of the schools' budget.

The Wake County school board officially agreed on Tuesday to set the goal of having all students graduate from high school by 2014.

One out of every five students isn't graduating now, but board members have said that setting a lower goal would send the wrong message to the community.

Wake's 2007 graduation rate of 78.8 percent was a decline from the previous year, but remains higher than the state average of 70.2 percent.