On June 10, the board will take a first look at the proposed budget for 2003-04. In order to approve the budget, the board needs to agree to spending in various categories, including class sizes and compensation—and that means negotiating with employees' groups for benefits and pay raises.

According to chief business official Ellen Tipton, health and welfare costs are slated to double next year, leading the district to explore plans that would cost nothing for most employees.

Combined with Gov. Gray Davis' idea of taking away funding for basic aid school districts such as Saratoga, the district faces a $1.14 million deficit if it goes with existing health plans. The district's total revenue is $14.9 million.

"We want everybody to have a no-cost plan for health and welfare, medical and dental," said board President John Waite at a May 27 meeting. Waite said, however, that switching to less costly plans and capping health and welfare costs would require some employees to switch doctors.

"The board is committed to providing health care for families at no cost," said Superintendent Mary Gardner.

But teachers disagreed, saying the proposal would limit their health benefits depending on where they lived and their family situations. They also said it would mean increased out-of-pocket spending for certain circumstances.

Mardi Connor, a teacher at Foothill Elementary School, said she now tells new teachers who ask her whether to leave the district to go, in part because of the proposed benefits plan and freezing of pay raises. "It breaks my heart," Connor said.

Redwood Middle School instructor Josh Marks said both freezing salaries and capping benefits was too much for employees. "I feel like you need to slam it somewhere, but not double slam it," Marks said.

Resident Clint Rosenthal, who has children in district schools, said, "We should keep the teachers whole." While district officials said maintaining current benefit plans would potentially lead the district into bankruptcy—because it would dip dangerously low into reserves—Rosenthal said it was a risk that should be taken. Rosenthal proposed using "community energy" to raise badly needed funds.

The risk of bankruptcy should be weighed against "teachers being disgruntled, and what is the impact on the kids?" Rosenthal said. He added that if the district goes down in quality, it will lose property tax funding for homes that will lose value.

But Waite said spending too much of the reserves would be a short-term solution and pointed out that the district had already spent some of those funds for the 2002-03 school year. "The current year that we finished was also a difficult year, just not as difficult as we anticipate next year to be," Waite said. "This is a two- to three-year process, at best."

Waite also pointed out that 86 percent of the district's spending is on employee compensation.

Teachers were also critical of the board's decision, made months ago, to increase class sizes as a result of potential loss of funding. "We had to make a decision about how we were going to staff for next year," Gardner said. "The decision has been difficult—partly because we've been playing out what-ifs."

Some good news, Tipton said, is that two teachers will be rehired because the district discovered that next year's enrollment will be higher than originally estimated. "This probably is not a first-year teacher," Tipton said, since the district will rehire by going down the seniority list.

"Wouldn't it make sense to do something like what Los Gatos is doing?" asked Foothill teacher Erin Faye, referring to the recent SOS—Save Our Schools—campaign, which raised $1 million in eight weeks to retain all of the Los Gatos Union School District's teachers.

Connor suggested having "personalized donations," where parents could make specific donations that would go toward decreasing the class size in their child's grade.

"There is a great danger" in doing so, Gardner argued. But Gardner said the Saratoga Education Foundation is campaigning to raise $1.2 million to keep class sizes small. With the help of parents and teachers, the foundation has sent out mailers and made pleas to the community for those funds.

But, Gardner said, the foundation has already raised $900,000 from parent donations this year and there are many other educational causes that are looking to the community for funding.

Waite added that the district is looking to funding alternatives. Besides the foundation's campaign, there is a possibility of a parcel tax, which the Los Gatos district already has.

At the same meeting, the board unanimously voted to eliminate 4.5 full-time equivalent classified positions, including a gardener position. According to classified employees association representative Claudia Fortson, the eliminations may be spread among employees; instead of eliminating a position entirely, different employees could lose a certain number of hours of work a week, adding up to one whole position. The issue is still under negotiation.

The preliminary budget will be discussed on June 10 and will be adopted June 24. Both meetings start at 6:30 p.m. and are currently scheduled to take place in the district office conference room. For more information, call 408.867.3424.