The Lawrence school board identified just over $1.25 million worth of budget cuts at its meeting Tuesday night to make up for reductions in funding from the state. Some cuts were finalized at the meeting while others that were proposed will be revisited in the near future.

The board made its first round of cuts, totaling about $920,000, on April 13 and needed to make another $900,000 in cuts to compensate for the lower base state aid per pupil after the Legislature made its final slashes to the state budget.

The biggest dollar-saving item is a transportation cut, which eliminates busing for elementary and junior high students who live closer than 2.5 miles from their school. That will save almost $450,000.

“I think parents are going to be largely surprised by the busing,” said Scott Morgan, board vice president. “That affects a number of people and we should expect that, having been through this before, that there will be comments made at times that won’t be followed by applause.”

The board members also took two vacant teaching positions out of the equation, one at the elementary level and one at the secondary level. That still leaves the full-time equivalency of 10 elementary and two secondary teachers that need to be hired.

“If what you have here for the certified (staff) is the most that you would be taking from those pools, then the difference will be what we go ahead and post and get hired,” said Kathy Johnson, finance division director. “It helps us move forward.”

But the board did take a few things off the table, including the prevention specialist, library media assistants and most of the vacant teaching positions at the elementary and secondary level.

Leslie Campbell, a librarian at Prairie Park School, originally came out to lobby the board to keep the library media assistant’s hours as they are now. The motion to save the position was met with applause.

“We appreciate your willingness to keep the LMA hours intact,” Campbell said. “Thank you very much.”

The board didn’t make final decisions on every item and left about $400,000 still up in the air, including reducing a new increase to instructional budgets for elementary schools and reducing days for learning coaches.

“Still outstanding cost-wise, we have negotiations ongoing, which includes fringe benefits, whatever that cost is,” said board member John Mitchell. “That’s still on the table.”

The board also voted to eliminate the uniform cycle, which ultimately affects Free State High School. While the board mentioned the use of contingency dollars, Johnson made sure the board knew that the budget woes are not over. Johnson noted that another mid-year cut by the state could happen during the 2009-2010 school year.

“By us spending any of our one-time dollars or our reserves … that could theoretically prevent us from meeting some needs if that rescission does occur in December,” Johnson said. “We need to be very, very careful about what we do with any one-time kinds of dollars.”

The tentative budget presentation and approval for publication is set for July 20, with a tentative budget hearing and approval at the board’s Aug. 10 meeting.