Tulsa Schools continues to trim its budget

Budget woes continue for Tulsa Public Schools. At Monday night's school board meeting, Dr. David Sawyer announced another possible multi-million round of cuts. <br><br>News on Six reporter Patrina

Tuesday, October 22nd 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Budget woes continue for Tulsa Public Schools. At Monday night's school board meeting, Dr. David Sawyer announced another possible multi-million round of cuts.

News on Six reporter Patrina Adger explains. "To take another $4.5 million is going to be an extremely difficult process for us to manage." But it's a process TPS Superintendent Dr. David Sawyer says might be a possibility if, â€œI think it's not prudent for TPS to sit around for the next 30, 60, 90 days with our fingers crossed hoping economic circumstances of the state will turn around and then being caught late this fiscal year such as we were last fiscal year. We're going back to the drawing board almost looking at it from a zero based budgeting standpoint. If the budget started today where do we look for making cuts."

Already this school year, the district has cut $13.5 million. If another $4.5 million is cut, that's a total of $18 million. The largest amount cut during the school year. John Hamill: TPS spokesperson, "We've gone thru starting school late, we've gone thru making a decision on 4 day furloughs, we've gone thru various things they can do up until this point."

Hamill says they're looking at everything short of layoffs. This school year started with 130 teachers less than the year before. The only way for the district to bounce back is for the state's economy to recover first, if that doesn't happen. "We're in for at least another 18 months of real budget tightening in education."