Gov. Bill Richardson signed House Bill 17, which reduced general fund appropriations, and slashed public education by two percent.

The cuts are part of a cost-cutting package to shore up an estimated $700 million deficit.

The blow to the classroom, however, is lessened by another piece of legislation signed into law. Richardson also gave his approval to SB 24, which appropriates $29 million from the Public School Capital Outlay Fund to the New Mexico Public School Insurance Authority to pay for property insurance premiums.

A spokesman from the governor’s office said that SB 24 will reduce the cut to education to an effective one percent.

Rio Rancho Public Schools developed contingency plans and a few “what-if” scenarios if its budget was cut at last Monday’s school board meeting.

The district was slated to receive $98,843,721 from the state’s funding equalization formula to educate students. That amount will be cut to roughly $96,866,847.

RRPS Chief Operations Officer Richard Bruce explained that the district is doing everything it can to not have the cuts impact the students.

“We’re having to prepare to meet those cuts without having even more impact into the classroom,” he said. “To meet those two percent cuts or what might come in January or February to prevent it from impacting the classroom further, we will use whatever resources we have to meet the cuts.”

Bruce acknowledged that the cuts will keep the pupil to teacher ratio high. He said that’s not ideal, but he also stressed that the district is not having to lay off any teachers.

“It is a tough time for all school districts in the entire state,” Bruce said. “We’ve managed to build a budget and to continue through this year without any layoffs, without devastating our programs and without losing the wonderful staff we have, but it has had an impact.”

Bruce said the state’s funding cut will require a two percent cut in department budgets. He said the savings realized would be $53,000.

Other ways to shore up the $1,976,874 difference include using $700,000 in cash that was carried over from last fiscal year; $600,000 in projected money for student growth; and $619,000 from the state paying insurance premiums.

That still leaves $4,874 to be cut, which Bruce said will be absorbed through department cuts.

The cuts will be applied to athletics, operations, communications, assistant to the superintendent, elementary curriculum, secondary curriculum, facilities, finance, fine arts, government liaison, human resources, information technology, research and data, safety and security, special projects, student services, superintendent’s office and special services.

The district took a conservative approach when crafting the FY 2010 budget and didn’t account for revenue from growth. The district’s pupil population grew by 3.3 percent and the district is slated to receive $2.95 million in January.

Bruce explained that the district used $600,000 of that money in August to pay for teachers in the current semester. He projects using $750,000 to hire teachers for next semester. The district will use $600,000 to shore up the recent cuts, $500,000 for projected cuts in February and $500,000 for the Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

Regarding available cash, the district carried over $2.2 million from FY 2009 to FY 2010. Bruce said the district is using $700,000 to shore up the recent cuts, $500,000 for projected cuts in February and $1 million for the Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

As for the new teachers to be hired, Bruce said he would like to have teachers in place before Christmas break so they may be ready to teach once second semester starts.

RRPS Superintendent Sue Cleveland said it’s important to ensure the district has enough money to keep the teachers employed.

“You get someone to leave their job and take on a class in Rio Rancho and if the money gets tight, that person loses their job,” Cleveland said. “We don’t want to do that. We are concerned about treating our employees fairly. If someone makes a commitment and leaves their job, we want to make sure they keep that job. We realize the sacrifices made by our employees.”

RRPS’s operating budget for Fiscal Year 2010, which began July 1, is $102.2 million in revenue and $103.8 million in expenses, with the shortfall being covered with cash reserves.

The operational budget supports teaching and learning in the classroom. The district uses 69 percent of the budget for salaries and 20 percent for employee benefits. Five percent of the district’s budget is for utilities and 1.4 percent is devoted to insurance. A little more than five percent of the operation budget goes to miscellaneous expenses.

Board member Don Schlicte said the analysis looked good to him.

“We’re in very good shape for a two percent cut,” he said “I won’t say it’s painless, but we’re in a good spot. I think it’s because of the due diligence from last year and so forth.”

Board member Craig Brandt said the children’s instruction is going to be affected.

“I kept hearing that we can handle the cuts, but what’s being affected is we can’t put growth money into new teachers so the class sizes are what they are supposed to be,” he said. “Our children are taking a hit.”

Board member Divyesh Patel said he wanted to make sure that classroom instruction wasn’t affected.

“Regarding the two percent department budget, I want to make sure none of these impact the classroom, students or safety,” he said. “We need to make sure our strategic plan is focused on the resources that contribute to student achievement, safety and growth of the district. We need to make sure the decisions we make are driven by those priorities.”

Cleveland said the district is looking at the possibility of having retired teachers return to the classroom. By doing this, the school wouldn’t have to pay benefits and the teachers could alleviate some of the work load.