More budget cuts at Tulsa Public Schools

A bad situation just got worse for Tulsa Public Schools. Thursday the state's largest district was hit with even more budget cuts.<br><br>News on Six anchor Scott Thomson says the state budget picture

Thursday, November 21st 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A bad situation just got worse for Tulsa Public Schools. Thursday the state's largest district was hit with even more budget cuts.

News on Six anchor Scott Thomson says the state budget picture continues to get worse for Oklahoma schools. Just three days ago, Tulsa Public Schools had a plan to deal with the latest round of cuts that left them $400,000 in the hole. Now, they've learned they'll be short another $2-million.

School officials say the district is once again considering trimming bus routes. Each school is also going to feel the pinch, $5,000 cut from each building. And if there was a hiring freeze before, itâ€™s frozen solid now. No new hires will be considered without the superintendent's permission. That means classes will be reorganized to cover teacher vacancies, which could increase class sizes.

Tulsa School officials think theyâ€™re taking a bigger hit because of a new funding formula. Tulsa School official, Bill Johnson: "It cuts large urban school districts a lot harder than a suburban school district as a result of that we've taken about a 10.2% cut."

Johnson says that's almost 3% more than suburban districts. This latest hit brings the total cuts to more than $17-million.