SYRACUSE --
More cuts could be coming to the Syracuse City School District. Board members are meeting this evening to talk about potential cuts.
Superintendent Dan Lowengard tells CNY Central the district may receive less money than it was expecting because of the ongoing state budget troubles. Tonight the school board approved a plan to eliminate 204 positions. The district budget originally called for 244 positions to be eliminated. Board members could come back next month and ask for another 50 to 100 job cuts.
The teachers union called off a vote on a four percent contractual wage freeze Thursday afternoon. The district has said the move would save $10 million and more than 200 jobs. Union officials say the administrative unit was not going to agree to it, so it was unfair to ask the teachers to. The union says it still hopes to negotiate with the district.
Superintendent Dan Lowengard has said earlier Thursday that he hoped the teachers would accept the freeze. “We want to avoid layoffs. We want to avoid those awful cuts and a freeze is sort of a last resort, hail mary trying to get something. Otherwise we're going to cut 243 positions,” said Lowengard.
Lowengard claims those layoffs could be averted if the unions give up scheduled pay hikes and go along with a salary freeze. Lowengard said previously he was reluctant to make the offer but says he has no other choices.
The Syracuse Teachers Association presented the pay freeze proposal to its members during two public forums earlier this week. The union said its members were essentially having to choose between the impact a freeze would have on their personal lives, or what a large layoff would do to their workloads and quality of education.
CNY Central's Alex Dunbar is at tonight's Syracuse School Board meeting. Stay with NBC3 and CBS5 News and CNYcentral.com for updates as they come in.
