School board seeks to pare budget deficit

WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) – The Wausau school district will overcome a remaining $265,000 budget deficit next year by requiring some teachers to take on a sixth class period.

That move will prevent any teacher layoffs at the district’s two middle schools but could mean at least 10 teachers losing their jobs at the district’s two high schools.

At the elementary level, the district will lower class size limits from 15 students to one teacher to an even smaller number of students per class.

The school board’s operations committee forwarded the budget recommendations to the full school board for a vote April 12th.

In addition, the district will try to raise new revenue by offering more virtual classes. The committee decided to take out an $87,000 budget reduction that would have increased the number of students per computer in the district.

The district originally faced a $3 million dollar deficit but pared that down because 18 teachers will voluntarily retire and three staff members ho will resign at the end of the year. The committee has also considered some $800,000 in budget cuts.