The Washington Township School Board cut $1.1 million from its general fund Wednesday.
Here are the areas to be affected:
* A reduction of elementary classroom assistants by 20 percent;
* An elimination of elementary and middle school summer school, except for English as a Second Language classes;
* Elimination of paid assistant coaches in several sports, including football, basketball, and boys and girls track;
* Reduction of salaries for coaches not in the bargaining unit.
This round of cuts was necessary because the Far-Northside school district is seeking to renew a general fund referendum — one that provides less funding than a current referendum in use in the district.
More than 90 percent of the general fund is used to pay for employees’ salaries and benefits.
The referendum that the School Board approved to take to the polls on May 4 would take 8 cents from every $100 in capital projects and move it to the general fund, Superintendent James Mervilde said.
The new referendum, already approved the City-County Council, is smaller than the current tax-neutral referendum, which siphons off 10 cents from every $100 in capital projects for the general fund.
The new tax-neutral referendum would funnel that money into the general fund for the next seven years. The current referendum, passed in 2003, expires this May.
If the voter referendum doesn’t pass, the board will have to slice $4 million more from the district’s $63 million general fund.
They also have yet to address $300 million in state cuts to educational funding for Grades K-12 statewide.
Mervilde plans to wait until late February or early March to see whether there is any state legislative relief for schools, before deciding how to address those cuts, which amount to 4.55 percent of the general fund, or about $2.8 million.
