Instrumental music students plan to greet Lawrence school board members tonight at a decisive budget meeting with deafening notes of alarm: Don’t cut sixth-grade orchestra and band programs.

“We have kids who want to play in the lobby,” said Sondra Mosley, who teaches orchestra at four elementary schools and Central Junior High School.

Their show of solidarity will be for benefit of the seven-member board, which will consider a plan that cuts $4 million from the district’s $85.8 million budget and raises nearly $1 million in fee increases. The $5 million package is designed to help the district balance the budget and have money left over to raise teacher salaries, even if the 2002 Legislature cuts state appropriations to public school districts.

On the first page of the budget blueprint, fourth item from the top, is the proposal to eliminate sixth-grade band and orchestra programs to save $245,000. The equivalent of six jobs would be lost.

Mosley would be among teachers affected by that move, but it’s the students she worries about most.

“Our students will obviously have one year less experience,” she said.

‘Butting heads’

Representatives of other programs scheduled to share the pain  nursing, athletics, special education, gifted, library, foreign language, cheerleading, guidance  also are expected to attend the public meeting to express displeasure about cuts that hurt their constituencies.

“We’re down to the point in the district when the inevitable will happen,” said Supt. Randy Weseman. “It’s inevitable … people will be butting heads.”

He said the past six months of district committee research and deliberation about budget options wouldn’t have been necessary if the Legislature adequately financed public schools. Insufficient appropriations for the past 10 years combined with the possibility of spending reductions this year set the table for the Lawrence district’s budget surgery, Weseman said.

“They’re in political paralysis,” Weseman said. “That hurts everybody.”

The superintendent said the board would be asked to put together a two-phase plan. Phase I would contain $3 million in budget reductions and revenue enhancements. Many of the adjustments, including deletion of teaching staff, would likely stand regardless of legislative action, Weseman said.

He said the money was needed to provide faculty and staff with competitive wage increases and deal with higher expenditures for utilities, health care and insurance.

Phase II would contain $2 million in prioritized spending cuts that would be called upon if lawmakers gutted education appropriations in response to a massive shortfall in state tax revenue.

More cuts planned

Other proposals likely to draw public comment during the board’s meeting at district headquarters, 110 McDonald Drive:

 Introduction of a pay-to-ride bus system that would raise $230,000 by requiring students to pay a $120-per-semester fee to ride the bus if living less than 2.5 miles from school. Students living beyond the 2.5-mile threshold and students in the free-lunch program would be exempt.

 Elimination of the district’s $140,000 contribution to the Working to Recognize Alternative Possibilities crisis-intervention program in elementary and secondary schools. The program, which has a staff of 20, is credited with contributing to a 50 percent reduction in the district’s dropout rate during the past five years.

 Trimming the staff of registered nurses working in schools and replacing them with lower-paid, less-experienced health aides. Savings: $42,000.

 Adoption of a pay-to-participate fee for junior high and high school athletics, including cheerleading. The $30-per-event fee at junior highs would generate $30,000, while a $50 fee at high schools might raise $110,000. The plan forwarded to the board recommends no blanket exemption for students in the free- or reduced-lunch programs. Those students could individually petition for a waiver.

 Deletion of special-education staff in sign language, autism, psychology, gifted, social work and speech/language positions for a savings of more than $200,000.