Prolonged financial woes force the cutting of "valuable meat," as in vital services.

In the Sunnyvale School District, Deputy Superintendent Ben Picard says the cutting is almost through the meat, and the district is still facing a deficit of $1.1 million for the 2005­06 school year.

"When you get down to cleaning classrooms every other day, and only having one school nurse to handle 6,000 students, you're very much cutting into the bone," he said.

Classroom cleaning and student health--along with transportation, counseling, maintenance and in-class help--are all handled by the district's 236 classified employees, and this group is being hit hard by cost-saving measures.

In a Feb. 3 report to the board of education, district officials said the district can meet its financial responsibilities for this school year, but if they're to make the needs of the next two, it will have to make more cuts.

As part of the report, district administration came up with a list of what positions could go if cuts were approved at the April 14 board meeting. Of the 16 positions slated for reduction, 12 of those are classified positions. Every cut, however, does not necessarily mean an employee will be laid off. The district is actually cutting "full-time equivalent" positions, which means they are cutting the number of hours people work, not necessarily the positions themselves.

Gina Tiscarno, president of the Sunnyvale chapter of the California Schools Employees Association, said classified positions are hit hard because when it comes time to cut positions, the district looks to non-teachers like the bus drivers, counselors and nurses.

"The fiscal insolvency is not a mismanagement of the district, but what bothers me is that the deficit has been balanced on the backs of the district employees," Tiscarno said.

Picard said it's true that classified employees are looked to for cuts before other positions because the district has to watch out for it's primary goal, which is having teachers in classrooms educating students. Even if teachers keep their jobs, they're facing larger and larger class sizes because as revenues have fallen, enrollment has stayed steady or even increased.

"As we've reviewed our services, we've tried to make our cuts as far from the class as possible, but it's getting to the point where students are being affected," Picard said.

Continued cuts mean classroom aides are being cut, transportation is harder to come by and health problems are not dealt with as quickly as they used to be.

Workers in some positions are being strained beyond their capacity by the cuts. Jim Wilson--one of the district's five maintenance employees--said his coworkers must maintain 12 school sites, including 10 schools, one operations building and the district office. Because of that, only the most severe maintenance needs are met.

"All we're doing is putting a Band-Aid where we need a tourniquet, because all we can do is the safety stuff," he said.

Picard said that the district doesn't see a change in the situation coming in the future. Some of its long-term forecasting suggests that things may not change for at least a decade because even without recent cuts, California public schools are classically under-funded.

"We don't want to make any of these cuts because they're all important services," Picard said. "That's what is so depressing about all of this; these people are good, dedicated employees of the district."