Many Twin Cities school districts will be millions of dollars in the hole unless they get a raise from the Legislature next year.

Each new revelation of an economy sinking into recession makes that less and less likely.

What the budget crunch will likely translate into is another painful winter of teacher layoffs, raised activity fees, discontinued programs, and maybe even a few shuttered schools.

Budget forecasts collected in a survey by the Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD), and released Tuesday, showed shortfalls for the 2009-2010 school year ranging from $400,000 in the St. Anthony-New Brighton district to $28 million in Minneapolis. Many of the 36 districts surveyed -- including Burnsville, Chaska, Osseo, Shakopee, Wayzata, Edina and Richfield -- are projecting shortfalls of between $1 million and $4 million. Anoka-Hennepin, the state's largest district, and St. Paul are looking at shortages of $17 million and $15 million, respectively.

The projections assume that schools will get no new money from legislators, who begin their 2009 session in January.

Without some kind of relief, school boards will be cutting budgets again for the 2009-2010 school year.

"Nobody has any fat to trim this year," said Pat Gleason, AMSD chairwoman and vice chair of the school board in Wayzata district, which is projecting a deficit of $2.1 million for next year. "There's no other place to go than things that affect kids and the classrooms. ... I'm sure the first thing we would do is raise class size." That raises the specter of big teacher layoffs.

In St. Louis Park, officials might look at closing a school at some point, said District Superintendent Debra Bowers, where the school board is anticipating a $901,000 deficit. Even one district in relatively good shape for next year -- Robbinsdale -- has all but decided to close one school to save $800,000, and might shut down two more.

Such budget figures have been dribbling out over the past several weeks as school boards absorb the results of November referendums and start setting budget targets for the 2009-2010 year. Minneapolis schools, for instance, announced its projected $28 million deficit last week. Though such projections portend big reductions, most districts have yet to identify cuts because it's too early in the budgeting process.

There are big variables at work that could change the whole equation. For instance, what if the Legislature decides to cut the state's K-12 budget instead of freezing it? What if legislators find a way to give schools modest increases? Plus, no one knows which districts will roll the dice with their voters next November and come out winners.

"Most anybody that can is going to really seriously consider [a referendum]," said Brad Lundell, executive director of Schools for Equity in Education, a consortium of Minnesota school districts. "It's simply because, given the nature of the state budget, everybody's going to be trying to look for dollars they can count on. It might be that the only way to raise money is to go for a referendum."

What makes increased state aid unlikely is a projected state deficit of $5.2 billion, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty's warning that the state K-12 budget needs to be rebuilt "from zero."

AMSD's survey represents three-quarters of the school districts in the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. Five of the districts contacted -- White Bear Lake, Minnetonka, Robbinsdale, Hastings, and Orono -- projected neither losses nor surpluses. All of those five districts got infusions of cash by when voters passed their referendum requests within the past three years.

AMSD annually releases such survey results. Most times, the majority of districts surveyed are projecting deficits and cuts. But association executive director Scott Croonquist said there's a big difference between this year's survey and those in the past. Previous surveys, he said, asked districts to assume they will get nothing new from the state and work from there. That was always considered to be the worst-case scenario. Not this time.

"The biggest difference this year is the assumptions we asked districts to make are more realistic," Croonquist said.

Norman Draper • 612-673-4547