Jordan district outlines job, program cuts

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West Jordan » Jordan School District likely will shrink by nearly 200 employees next year. But its class sizes and tax rates won't grow.

And many students attending year-round elementary schools will get next summer off.

On Tuesday, Superintendent Barry Newbold recommended the school board plug a $17.2 million budget hole by cutting 190 full-time positions and trimming some programs. The district expects to lose additional employees through attrition.

The Jordan board plans to hold a public hearing and adopt the final budget on June 8. But the board expressed initial support for Newbold's proposed budget, directing the district to begin distributing notices to employees whose positions will be eliminated.

All employees will be notified by May 30. Those with seniority in the district will be able to bump less-senior workers, creating a domino effect that likely will ripple through every school.

"The size of the cuts are significant and that will force additional work load onto every remaining employee," Newbold said. "Individual lives and families will definitely be impacted with these cuts."

The proposed job cuts include seven guidance counselors, two assistant superintendents, two assistant principals, 16 reading specialists and a number of secretaries and maintenance workers.

The district can save $700,000 by switching seven year-round elementary schools to traditional formats: Copper Canyon, Elk Meadows, Riverside, Rosamond, Silver Crest, Southland and Westvale. Another $125,000 can be trimmed by closing the West Jordan Middle School pool.

Plans also call for closing Jordan Alternative Middle School, increasing music fees and eliminating Safe Schools, At Risk and Jordan Student Intervention Team programs.

"I am appalled at the severity of these cuts," Robin Frodge, president of the Jordan Education Association, said after the meeting. "I am amazed that the school board would do this without even considering a small tax increase or furlough days," two of the recommendations of the JEA.

The southwest Salt Lake Valley district has grappled with financial woes since residents of its east side broke away and formed Canyons School District, taking valuable commercial property with them. Canyons opened its doors in July 2009.

Most of the current budget shortfall is a deficit from the 2009-10 budget when the board pared down a proposed 40 percent tax hike to a 20 percent boost after taxpayers balked.

"The Jordan School District just experienced a first in Utah in going through a district division," board member J. Dale Christensen said at the meeting. "We plowed new ground, and now we're addressing the consequences, to a large degree, as a result of the district division."

Christensen said the cuts are necessary so the district can have a "sustainable" budget in the future without yearly deficits.

But raising taxes also could be a long-term fix, said Michelle Jorgensen, a first-grade teacher at Mountain Shadows Elementary.

"You'd have that forever," Jorgensen told the board during a comment period. "I feel like you hold my future, and I don't. ... The morale after tonight is [going to be] so bad."