The Buffalo Public Schools, already reeling from five years of large-scale layoffs, might have to eliminate another 1,400 jobs and shut nine schools over the next three years to close spiraling budget gaps, according to the state control board.
The control board report is essentially a commentary on a four-year financial plan submitted by the school district. It said that, without cost-saving measures, the school system's budget gap would soar to $131 million in 2008-09.

Projections in the four-year plan are probably far more dire than the way things will actually play out from year to year, cautioned Gary M. Crosby, the school district's chief financial officer.

That's because the control board does not allow the district to include state aid increases in its projections, even though state aid accounts for 80 percent of the district's budget and has been growing at an average yearly rate of 4 percent.

While massive cuts may be necessary, the control board report said they would lead to increased class sizes and deep service cuts, and pose a "significant risk" to the district's efforts to boost dismal academic performance and graduation rates.

In addition to job reductions, the district anticipates saving $13 million by instituting single carrier health insurance. The health care consolidation has already been put in place but is being challenged by the district's unions.

Crosby said efforts will also be made to save jobs by instituting cost-cutting measures in cooperation with district unions and, in turn, to work with the unions to get the control board's wage freeze lifted.

"We need the unions to cooperate, to make some changes here," he said. "We cannot continue to balance the budget the way we've been doing it - by dismantling the school district."

Nearly 900 positions were cut between the 2000-01 and 2004-05 school years. Attendance teachers were cut by 64 percent, guidance counselors by 34 percent and school librarians by 23 percent. Additional layoffs this school year increase those percentages even more.

Only a portion of the additional cuts included in the four-year plan are justified by declining enrollment, since services have already been drastically reduced. For example, East High School students complained at a recent Board of Education meeting that the school has just one guidance counselor for 700 students.

The control board said the potential budget gaps are being driven largely by "exorbitant employee benefit costs." District expenditures are projected to increase by 17 percent - or $120 million - over the next four years, even with the wage freeze in place. More than two-thirds of that increase is due to fringe benefits.

Donald A. Van Every, chairman of the Board of Education's Finance Committee, said the control broad process presents a flawed view of the future because state aid hikes and cost-cutting measures not yet instituted cannot be factored in.

"This is a relatively artificial process," he said. "It's a snapshot that's only good the moment you're looking at it."

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