IRVINE : Trustees Say Cuts Will Hardly Affect Students

After months of number-crunching and hand-wringing over losses in Orange County’s collapsed investment pool, school board members tonight are expected to cut $2.2 million from next school year’s $100-million budget.

They predict very little effect on students.

“All the basic programs will remain the same,” school board President Tom Burnham said. “But what we’ve put together is a survival budget versus an investment budget.”

School libraries and special education programs, once targeted for sizable reductions, would be spared under the current budget-cutting plan.

But there will be some pain among the Irvine Unified School District’s 60 classified employees, who may be sent notices of potential layoff. The jobs of classified workers range from secretary to custodian.

Senior-level employees whose jobs are eliminated have the right to take the job of an employee with less seniority. All employees affected will receive notices of potential layoff, but only about 20 to 30 classified workers are expected to be without a job under the latest plan, district officials said. The 21,700-student district has sent notices of potential layoff to 120 temporary teachers and 30 administrators.

The district is facing $11.7 million in investment pool losses from $107 million on deposit when the county declared bankruptcy Dec. 6. But Burnham said he is confident that the district has enough options to prevent defaulting on a $54.5-million bond payment due June 13.