Proposed cuts to the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system's budget could eliminate nearly 500 to 1,000 staff positions during the 2011-2012 school year.
The school system has about 8,000 employees, according to the system's website.
Superintendent Don Martin presented scenarios to the board's finance committee Friday morning in response to the governor's request to state agencies, such as the Department of Public Instruction, to show how they would cut 5 percent and 10 percent in costs for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The state is looking for ways to cover an expected budget shortfall of at least $3.7 billion.
Martin emphasized that the legislature, which will go into session later this month, may have other ideas about how the state should fund education.
Martin said that because North Carolina's budget deficit continues to grow, he took the state's budget reduction request a step further. He showed committee members how the system, if forced, could cut close to 15 percent from its $450 million budget. That means eliminating 984 staff members in either full or part-time positions, including teachers, assistant principals, teacher assistants, primary reading teachers and fifth-grade foreign-language teachers.
"This is going to be a dramatic impact in the classroom and the personnel," said Jane Goins, a School Board member. "The enormity of it is just bad."
To reduce costs by 5 percent, the local system could eliminate 154 teachers; 12 career and technical education teachers; 9 assistant principals; 176 teacher assistants; 27 instructional support people, such as media coordinators and guidance counselors; and 116 primary reading teachers, Martin said.
To reduce costs by 10 percent, Martin suggested cuts that include at least 107 teachers; 17 career/technology teachers; 13 assistant principals; 345 teacher assistants; 30 people in instructional support; and 228 primary reading teachers.
Additional savings could come from cuts to central office staff and services and lowering the per-pupil spending on academically gifted students.
Martin said that the school system hired 325 new teachers for the current school year. Based on that number, the system might be able to achieve many of the cuts to those positions through attrition.
Board member Vic Johnson said that he worried about the effects on the local economy from cutting so many staff members and wondered if the cuts couldn't come from somewhere other than personnel.
Martin said that about 90 percent of the school system's budget comes from staff salaries and that when cuts have to go so deep, personnel is the logical place to look.
Johnson said he was particularly concerned about the plight of teacher assistants, who make about $29,000 a year.
"It's a hurting type of thing when you see these assistants out of work," he said.
Goins said that she is concerned about possibly cutting primary reading teachers.
"Reading is the foundation of everything," she said.
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