Members of the Tahoma School Board will start hammering out a budget for the 2009-2010 school year now that it has received a report chock full of ways to make spending cuts.

At its meeting Tuesday the school board was presented with a report from the Budget Adjustment Administrative Committee which spent three months coming up with the proposed reductions, according to Tahoma School District spokesman Kevin Patterson.

“The committee of administrators that is analyzing the budget to find ways to reduce spending is literally looking at everything,” Patterson said. “Their goal is to identify spending that can either be eliminated or temporarily suspended with as little disruption as possible to our students. It is a surgical approach, rather than simply identifying entire programs or departments that could be cut. It has been an intense process but it should result in a product that meets the needs of the school board as it makes final budget decisions.”

The committee was asked by the school board to find a way to trim $3.35 million from the budget through cuts or new funding sources. It reviewed all district programs for budget changes then asked program administrators and principals to make decisions on specific items to be included in the proposed adjustments. Those suggestions were reviewed by the committee before completing the final report.

Among the recommendations are increased prices for school lunches, adding a $75 fee per athlete per sport for high school students, a $75 increase for traffic safety tuition, eliminate the Camp Casey field trip for fifth graders, phasing out the elementary school gifted program, eliminating elementary and middle summer school programs and cut high school C teams.

Additionally, the committee recommended cutting 18 certificated positions “including the elimination of eight elementary and 10 secondary” positions. These reductions could potentially come from core classroom teachers, certificated part-time librarians, as well as reduction of time for an elementary social worker and middle school counselor time, cuts in language arts classes and electives at Tahoma Junior High, and not filling a vacant dean of students position at Shadow Lake Elementary among other things.

“With approximately 85 percent of the district budget related to compensation and benefits, the committee believes that to balance the budget it is necessary to look at reduced staffing,” the report said.

Another reduction will come from voluntary pay cuts from those in supervisory positions throughout the district.

“Administrators, which includes principals, department heads and the superintendent, agreed to reduce their salary by 2.25 percent next year,” Patterson said. “That means they will not get a raise and will cut their current salary by 2.25 percent. The same is true for non-represented staff, many of whom work at Central Services. Anticipated savings is about $100,000.”

According to the report, “Tahoma administrator staffing is the lowest in comparison with an average of 351.23 students per administrator,” relative to neighboring districts including Kent, Renton and Enumclaw.

“Given this information, the size of our schools, a review of needs, and the leadership role that the district expects of our administrators, the committee did not make a recommendation to reduce the staffing of administrative positions,” the report said. “The proposed adjustment comes from voluntary salary cuts … for all administrative and supervisory positions in the district including all classified and non-represented staff.”

Patterson re-iterated that the proposed recommendations in the 51-page report are not final at this time and that there will be opportunities for the public to provide input into the process.

“Now the conversation begins,” Patterson said.

The school board will approve a final budget for next year by May 5.