LAUSD could make deeper cuts

Already facing massive cuts this year, Los Angeles Unified School District officials have now been told to brace for reductions of up to $140 million next year.

With a projected three-year deficit of nearly $700 million, Senior Deputy Superintendent Ramon Cortines said during a televised budget discussion Monday that he will ask all eight local districts to slash their 2009-10 budgets by 50 percent, down to $4 million each. He will also chop the district headquarters budget by $108 million, or 30 percent.George B. Sanchez in the Daily News.

The decreases apply to administrators, support staffers and other resources outside the schools themselves.

Cortines said he knows this will create further turmoil in a district already racked by cuts this year - and expecting possibly more before the 2008-09 fiscal year ends in June.

But he said he has no choice. The state's massive budget deficit, fueled by the slumping economy, is expected to hurt schoo