Grappling with a budget shortfall caused by declining enrollment, trustees of Orange County's largest school district voted Tuesday to close two schools in June as part of a plan to cut $15.6 million in spending for the next school year.
Closing Grant Elementary and Taft Intermediate schools will save the Santa Ana Unified School District $723,000 annually. But the bulk of the cuts were accomplished through accounting measures and administrative belt-tightening, including tapping new state funds earmarked for music instruction and grants for intramural sports, replacing on-site groundskeepers with roving crews, and cutting departmental budgets by 5%.
"We need to start being responsible and dealing with the problems the district faces," said Rob Richardson, president of the school board, after nearly five hours of discussion Tuesday night. "And part of that is making some tough decisions."
State funding for school districts is based on enrollment. More than half of the state's 1,054 school districts and more than three-quarters of Orange County's 27 districts are facing declining enrollment.
Santa Ana Unified saw strong population growth in the 1990s and is still building schools to relieve a backlog of overcrowded classrooms. But the district, which has a current enrollment of about 54,800, has lost about 6,000 students in four years. That includes a drop of 1,662 students during the current year that resulted in a loss of $9 million in state funds.
Trustees, who have cut $59 million in spending since 2004, expect enrollment to continue declining. The district is losing students because of declining birthrates and rising housing costs that have forced families to move inland for more affordable homes. Meanwhile, spending on special education, employee benefits and other costs continue to rise.
"After several consecutive years of making reductions, it's not getting any easier," Richardson said.
The most controversial cuts approved Tuesday night involved the closures of the two schools, a move that parents and teachers passionately protested.
The decision to close 297-student Grant, a collection of ramshackle portables in an immigrant neighborhood, will save $413,000 annually. The school opened in 2000 as a temporary home for students at overcrowded Roosevelt and Heninger elementary schools. But more classrooms have been built at Roosevelt and space is available at Heninger, so district officials decided to move the students to those schools.
