NORTHAMPTON - Before an anxious crowd of 50, Superintendent of Schools Isabelina Rodriguez laid out her budget recommendations for fiscal 2010, which include proposed cuts to staff and services to bridge a nearly $3 million gap.

Rodriguez is proposing the laying off of 48 teachers and seven teacher's aides across the city's six schools, cutting transportation to the minimum required by law -a savings of $205,000- and a $120,000 cut in operations and maintenance. Also included are a custodian lost to attrition and a wage freeze for non-unionized employees.

To maintain a level-funded budget would cost $28.5 million. But with the city facing a $6.1 million shortfall, Mayor Clare Higgins has called for a 12 percent reduction in all city departments from the current year. The gap for the school district is $2,984,045.

Based on the percentages of students at each grade level, the proposed cuts would be administered as follows: four aides and 23 teachers across the four elementary schools; two aides and 11 teachers at JFK Middle School; one aide and 14 teachers at Northampton High. The cuts would likely result in larger class sizes.

"I see these cuts in my sleep," Rodriguez lamented. "They're so drastic, each one of them, but they don't even reach the $3 million gap on their own."

Stipends for assistant athletic coaches and for teachers who oversee various extracurricular activities would also be eliminated. Rodriguez said that NHS Athletic Director Jim Miller is holding an organizational meeting next week to address the idea of booster clubs to keep those activities running.

"Obviously, by eliminating 14 teachers at the high school, it's going to affect balance," said Rodriguez. "We're not going to be able to offer some classes. The average class size would go from 25 to 35 students."

Very disturbing to Rodriguez is the elimination of the 11 teachers at JFK Middle School, a school that has made great strides to close an achievement gap on MCAS scores. "I'm very concerned about moving 11 teachers out of a school just moving out of restructuring," she said.

Residents in the public comment session urged the committee not to close an elementary school, with the RK Finn Ryan Road School now perceived as the one in jeopardy. Many also questioned the declining enrollment data used to justify such a closing. Andrea Egitto, a parent and kindergarten teacher at Ryan Road said that such a decision "would add 100 students to each school."

Rodriguez said that research showed that closing a school would save about seven teachers, but the savings in such a move would equal no more than $320,000 and do very little to prevent large class sizes. "I was shocked that bringing that back into the mix would not dramatically change things," she said.

The district's projected enrollment is a 10 percent decline over the next 10 years..

Joel Feldman of Northampton Education Action Team told the board that he does not envy their job and urged fellow parents not to pit one school against another.

Though State Secretary of Education Paul Reville said Wednesday that the public schools are in line for over $1 billion in federal stimulus funds, Mayor Clare Higgins questions that figure. She says federal money coming to schools will be restricted to use for special education; however, Reville, during a visit to the Gazette, said that much of the money available would not be restricted and could indeed be used for regular operating costs.

At best, Higgins and Rodriguez thought that the stimulus money coming to the school district would be no more than $100,000 to $200,000.

"The stimulus thing is really murky," said Higgins. "We have a huge gap here - I would hate to tie our budget to something that may or may not materialize."

At 11 p.m. the board agreed to put debate on the budget on hold and digest the enormous amount of data presented. There will be a joint meeting of the School Councils and the Budget and Property Committee on Monday at 6:30 p.m., following that committee's regular 5 p.m. meeting at JFK Middle School.

Bob Flaherty can be reached at bflaherty@gazettenet.com.