PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles School Board will consider budget cuts that could include teacher layoffs at a meeting tonight.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m. at Dry Creek Elementary School, 25 Rife Road.
At a budget overview last week, the board looked at what the Washington State School Directors’ Association believes will happen in the Legislature — which enters a special extended session Tuesday to pass a two-year budget — and how that might affect school districts.
The district expects to have about $1.6 million less in revenue in the 2011-2012 school year than it did this year.
Cuts could include a reduction in force for teachers.
If the board does vote to lay off teachers, union rules require that they be notified by the middle of May.
Because a combined budget for the state House and state Senate has not been approved, any plan will be a guess, based on the current budgets that are out, Superintendent Jane Pryne said.
The majority of the revenue loss — about $1 million — is because the Legislature in January voted to reduce allocations by the same amount as the district was receiving from the federal government through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.
Pryne said funding that reduces class sizes — and thus helps districts hire more teachers — in grades kindergarten through fourth grades would likely be eliminated altogether as well.
Enrollment also is expected to drop by about 40 students, which would mean a loss of about $200,000 a year.
Pryne is preparing a reduced education plan but said it is not yet ready to be made public, she said.
“I am waiting to have the most recent numbers and am still working the numbers,” she said.
“The board will be voting on a plan on Monday, and it will take into account the worst-case scenario, but we will hope for the best.
“We are listening to all of the people in Olympia so that we can use the best information possible.”
