Layoffs loom as D-11 votes on budget cuts
Posted : Mar 10, 2010 1:39 PM
Updated: Mar 10, 2010 8:15 PM
As many as 15 assistant principals, school support staff, special education teachers and transportation employees could be out of a job this summer as a result of $6.8 million in budget cuts being considered tonight by District 11 Board of Education.
Teachers, custodians and bus drivers will be spared in the layoffs. Early proposals called for 9 assistant principals to be laidoff, but 5 of them were spared during an 11th hour budget meeting Tuesday night.
Deputy superintendent Mike Poore was able to strike a deal to save the assistant principals by redirecting the cuts through retirements and instructional supplies and materials.
Funding for the schools specifically will not be touched, but nearly every other department in the district will operate with less money next year.
School board president Tom Strand says he hopes to avoid layoffs all together.
"I'm hoping that we can avoid any layoffs where people will be given a pink slip and said they'll need to find a job elsewhere," Strand said.
District 11, like many Colorado school districts, is anticipating millions of dollars of a losses in state funding for the 2010-2011 school year.
The school board meeting will begin 6:30 p.m. at the Central Administration Building, 1115 N. El Paso Street.
