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# Schools mull cutting teachers
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/schools-mull-cutting-teachers/
- Published: 2007-04-27T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T00:38:49.000Z
- Author: Melody Hanatani
- Tags: Education, Malibu, #archive-import

*Staff cuts also proposed in administrative office*

SMMUSD HDQTRS After releasing a list of budget solutions that included a proposal to cut 31 teaching positions last week, school officials are taking a step back.

Facing declining enrollment and an estimated $3 million deficit for fiscal year 2007-08, Dr. Stephen Hodgson, interim chief financial officer for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, presented last week a so-called “budgetary solution strategy” that would increase class sizes and cut teaching positions.

The original idea was to slash 31 full time-equivalent teaching positions, but that number has since been trimmed to 26, said Hodgson, during a Board of Education special budget meeting on Wednesday.

“We thought after the last meeting that it would be more appropriate to reduce the number from 31 to 26... to remain sensitive to some instructional priorities the board has established,” Hodgson said.

The district is set to lose more than 500 students over the next three years, including more than 150 students in the 2007-08 school year, severely impacting one of the district’s main sources of revenue.

A three-year financial outlook shows SMMUSD facing a structural deficit of approximately $11 million through the 2009-10 school year. During the session, the board and public were presented with a better sense of how the school district could save money to wipe out the estimated budget deficit hovering over the next fiscal year.

“We’re getting at a point where, in order to prepare for the 07-08 budget, we have to have some serious conversations,” said Superintendent Dianne Talarico.

FROM SCHOOLS PAGE 1 Perhaps one of the most controversial suggestions would’ve been to cut 31 FTE teaching positions in the district, including six in kindergarten through third grade classes. The goal was to raise the student-teacher ratio in these grade levels from the current 19.31:1 to 20.44:1.

But a week of thinking has led school officials to keep staffing close to its current level for the time being, as they plan to slowly bring the student-teacher ratio to the ideal level of 20.44:1.

Approximately 80 to 90 percent of total expenditures are directly related to personnel costs, including salaries and benefits.

Reductions could also occur on the administrative level as Hodgson is proposing to cut two administrative positions from the district’s top office, resulting in a savings of approximately $600,000 over the next three years. He is also proposing reorganization within the district’s administrative office, though he has not formulated a dollar figure for savings.

The total number of proposed reductions in administrative positions also changed from the previous three to two last week.

A new proposal that seemed to have raised a few eyebrows was to institute a so-called “connections” fee for all new non-district purchased computers that are connected into the district’s network. The assessment would not only bolster the district’s IT Department’s budget, but it would also decrease the percentage of the general fund used to support IT. There was no cost savings figure attached to the proposal, only a note for a “tbd.”

Just a few hours before the special budget meeting, Board of Education members heard a presentation from the November Learning Team on how to implement technology in the classroom.

“I’m a little wary on that one because... we’re trying to encourage to move ahead in technology and this sort of moves in the other way,” said school board member Emily Bloomfield.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 27, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/042707.pdf?ref=smdp.com)