St. Paul school music program may survive - at expense of administrators

The St. Paul School District is backtracking on a proposal to eliminate elementary instrumental music instruction for next year.

The district faces a $25 million deficit for the 2009-10 school year, and eliminating the music lessons for students in grades 4, 5 and 6 would save the district $1.4 million.

But a community outcry ensued when the proposal was pitched, and so the board, meeting as a committee of the whole, voted Tuesday to redesign the program and cut its funding for next year by $700,000, or half of the original proposal.

A formal vote on the proposal won't come until next month.

So where would the money come from for the altered proposal?

Administration.

The board committee voted to propose deepening administration cuts for next year from $1.4 million to $2.3 million.

The district also got more specific about three sports with "extremely low participation" that could still be cut -- alpine skiing, danceline and cheerleading.

The district announced in January that it's facing a $25 million deficit for the 2009-10 school year. At 5 percent of the district's operating budget, it's the largest budget deficit the district has faced in at least a decade.

The $2.3 million in administration cuts backed Tuesday by the board committee would mean a loss of about 16 positions in central administration.

The funding for the elementary instrumental music program would mean that each elementary school could offer one day a week of district-funded instrumental instruction, and the schools could pay for more out of their own budgets if they wanted. The four district elementary schools with a focus on music -- Mississippi Creative Arts Magnet, Linwood Monroe Arts Plus, Four Seasons A+ Elementary and Franklin Music Magnet -- could have the same level of instrumental instruction as they do for the current school year.

The St. Paul School District is the second largest in the state, with 38,500 students and a total spending budget of about $652 million for the 2008-09 school year. Over the past nine years, the district has made more than $90 million in cuts to its projected school budgets.