City May Have to Slash School Budget

Four schools will have to be closed, 210 staff fired, and dozens of programs wiped out if the Cambridge school system is to meet the state-mandated 4 per cent cap on spending increases. School Superintendent William Lannon said in a budget submitted to the school committee last night.

Lannon said he would ask the city council to override the cap, but added that even with a 13 per cent increase in funding, which Lannon called the lowest educationally sound level, the school system would have to lay off nearly 80 teachers.

Hearings begin on the budget tonight. "If the capped budget goes through, we might as well go into the food services business," Lannon said last night. "I've already cut almost everything I've done in the last five years and I'm still $2 million shy of Gov. Kings' stupid cap." Lannon added.

Unless the council votes to override the cap or the State allows Cambridge to exceed the limit, 210 staff members, including 80 teachers and 40 part time aides and tutors, will be let go and sabbatical leaves, elementary athletics, foreign language, science and library programs, evening school and the adult diploma programs will be closed down. Four schools will also be closed, the central office relocated, and negotiated step raises for teachers cut off.

"There is no way any of the budgets can stay within 4 per cent," City Mayor Francis H. Duehay '55 said yesterday. Duehay, who will vote with other city councilors on the cap override proposal, said yesterday he had not had a chance to look at the budget, but added. "It will be a question of how much cutting has to be done."

If the higher budget wins council ap- proval, many elementary school academic programs and the system's special education effort would still be hard hit.

Lannon said he prepared the budget based on the assumption that teachers would not get raises this year, and added that if teachers do win salary increases, additional cuts would have to be made.

"There is no way that the membership will accept a 0 per cent increase, "Susan Noonan-Forster, first vice-president of the city teacher's union, said last night.

The current teacher's contract expires August 31.

Morale among teachers is low and further budget cuts will only worsen the problem, Forster added. "We're stretched very thin; there's really very little left of the system," she said