SAN MARCOS — School started back up this week, and fallout from the state budget crunch has already taken its toll on the San Marcos Unified School District, or SMUSD, forcing cuts in jobs and programs for the 2008-2009 school year. These cuts have largely been made on speculation as the state is now two months late on actually approving a budget.

“The overarching issue is we do not know exactly how much money we’re going to have,” SMUSD board member Mary Borevitz said. “We didn’t know when we signed our budget, and we don’t know at the start of school. ... This is really an intolerable situation. How can you run a $100 million district not knowing how much you’re going to have?”

District staffers all agreed that the biggest casualty this year was transportation. The yellow school buses that have been an emblem of education for generations are now a thing of the past with the complete cancellation of regular service. According to Deanna Ray, who works in the transportation office, the system had been well-used and provided a valuable free service for the poor. She also said that 27 drivers and several office workers lost their jobs. The only busing left is transportation for special education students, which is required by federal law.

Ray was doubtful that the standard service would ever be brought back, but she didn’t rule out the possibility. “As long as the fleet is still here we stand a chance of being able to redo it,” she said. “But if they sell off the fleet, we can’t afford to get it back.”

Mission Hills High School Principal Brad Lichtman characterized the budget crisis as the worst since the recession of the early 1990s, perhaps since the Proposition 13 days of the late 1970s. He said his school had to cut seven teaching positions resulting in increased class sizes across the board and said the situation was virtually identical at San Marcos High School.

“It makes it harder for us to keep some classes which have typically been smaller for intervention purposes (for) students who struggle ... in math and the English language arts,” Lichtman said.

Lichtman did say that there were no teachers laid off to meet the constrained budget, largely through use of retirement incentives. Borevitz confirmed that only one or two teachers were let go for financial reasons. However, the approximately 40 teachers who retired or left the district this year will likely not be replaced any time soon, and many temporary teachers’ contracts were dropped, too.

“My sense of discouragement is about new teachers coming down the pipe,” Borevitz said. “There probably won’t be as many because they’re kind of fearful to go into teaching.”

Despite the cuts, things are not as bad as they could have been. In January, the state released a budget that was much leaner. School nurses, librarians and physical education teachers at the elementary level were all put on the block. However, a revised budget in May allocated more funds to the schools, perhaps in response to the wave of statewide protests against education cuts. As a result, these positions survived largely intact.

Borevitz also stressed that the district would persevere no matter how much was cut.

“Education always steps up to the plate and does a good job, especially in our district.”