Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. David L. Brewer said that Schwarzenegger's proposal would cost the district as much as $440 million. He called cuts of that magnitude "impossible."
"They're going to have to go out and borrow money because we'd go bankrupt," Brewer said. "Fiscally, we can't do that without literally having to shut down schools."
By law, teachers cannot be fired unless they are told months in advance.
"You can't just hand out pink slips," Brewer said. Teachers "have protections, they have union agreements."
The looming cuts for L.A. Unified would follow $190 million pared last year.
The district also had to borrow $550 million last summer to get by while the Legislature and governor were deadlocked over a state budget.
On Monday, Brewer sent all L.A. Unified employees a letter warning them that "California's financial picture is getting worse every day" and "without substantial, systematic, responsible districtwide cuts and help from Sacramento, LAUSD will not be able to make payroll by the end of next school year."
Brewer said he had convened a blue-ribbon committee to find ways to generate more revenue for the district, including putting billboards on freeway-facing schools, which could generate $20,000 to $30,000 a month.
School officials statewide issued thousands of pink slips when the budget was being negotiated earlier in the year, bracing for multibillion-dollar cuts proposed by the governor.
But they were told by the governor and lawmakers that the state would provide enough money to avoid them.
"They told us not to do layoffs, because they would solve our problems," said Kevin Gordon, a lobbyist who represents hundreds of school districts. "Then they put together a budget with fake numbers. . . . I don't know how schools would keep their doors open with cuts of this magnitude."
Schwarzenegger told the officials that even if lawmakers approved a sales tax hike, deep cuts to schools may be unavoidable. The temporary one cent-on-the-dollar sales tax hike the governor had earlier proposed, which was blocked by legislative Republicans, would close only a fraction of the shortfall.
School officials say the governor is focused on the sales tax because it is one of the few available sources of new revenue that would create immediate cash. Other potential tax hikes, such as increased income taxes for the wealthy, would not boost state coffers for more than a year, when taxpayers begin to file under the new rates.
GOP legislative leaders predicted that their caucuses would continue to stand firm against a tax hike.
They suggested that school cuts could be averted by moving money out of other parts of the budget.
"The last thing Republicans want to do is take money out of classrooms," said Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines of Clovis.
"There are plenty of fast-growing programs that should be looked at first. . . . Raising taxes is not on the table. Raising taxes on hard-working Californians is the worst thing we could do in this bad economy when many people are losing their jobs, their homes and are struggling to make ends meet."
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evan.halper@latimes.com
nancy.vogel@latimes.com
