A $37,000 study of Lawrence school district jobs held by classified employees will be finished in February, but the prospect of using it to boost salaries appears dim.

“At least we’ll have a plan in place,” Bob Arevalo, personnel director for the Lawrence district, said Wednesday.

In a meeting with 50 of the district’s 800 hourly employees at Southwest Junior High School, Arevalo outlined progress on the reclassification study being conducted by Educational Management Solutions of Murphys, Calif.

The school board authorized review of the classified employee compensation system in June. The board was motivated to approve the study because annual classified staff turnover has been as high as 35 percent.

“It’s a proactive, fair, systematic approach to determining salaries and job responsibilities,” said Mary Rodriguez, the district’s executive director of human resources.

Completion of the consultants’ report will coincide with deliberations in the district about options for cutting $1.5 million from the budget.

Arevalo said the study was important — even in tight budget times — because it would define strategies for improving “glaring problems” in compensation of custodial, maintenance, secretarial, bookkeeping, food service, administrative service, paraeducators and technology employees when resources become available.