TPS math lesson

IT'S elementary arithmetic.

The Toledo Public Schools must quickly eliminate a $30 million deficit projected for the next school year - an amount that represents roughly 10 percent of the district's general fund budget. Employee compensation, mostly pay and benefits, accounts for more than four-fifths of the budget.

If TPS executives are unable or unwilling to achieve significant savings in personnel costs to help close the gap, their only options are to slash spending everywhere else, to seek a big tax increase, or both. Which, of course, is precisely the district's current strategy.

The district wants hard-pressed taxpayers to vote May 4 for a new 0.75 percent tax on earned income. But if school leaders cannot show by then - or well before then, since early voting starts soon - that all of its employees will make meaningful economic sacrifices to avert a fiscal crisis, then it is hardly reasonable to expect voters to make the sacrifice the district wants from them.

The Toledo Board of Education delayed voting until at least next week on two sets of spending cuts proposed by district executives - one that assumes approval of the tax increase, one that does not. Board members said they lacked adequate information to evaluate either plan.

If voters pass the tax, officials say, several successful programs - notably Toledo Technology Academy and Toledo Early College High School - will be spared the ax. Most of the interscholastic athletic program and student transportation services would be saved. Two single-sex schools and school crossing guards also would survive.

Libbey High School appears a goner in any event. But this crisis is not a time to get sentimental over buildings, however much appealing history they contain.

Meanwhile, board members are welcome to offer their own proposals for spending reductions. So is any other constituent who doesn't like what district executives are proposing. Those who assert there is budget fat would perform a public service by identifying it.

The budget plans include nearly $3.3 million in unspecified - and as yet merely "proposed" - compensation adjustments. District officials say they continue to negotiate pay and benefit concessions with school unions, notably the Toledo Federation of Teachers.

But this week's board meeting offered no indication of the progress of those talks. Schools Superintendent John Foley continues to refuse to state publicly the givebacks he seeks from the unions, although taxpayers would find that information useful.

Many teachers contend that they already are underpaid for the hours they put in, the amount of education they have pursued, and the sums of money they spend out of their own pockets to supplement meager classroom supplies. They argue that district executives have not shown a willingness to subject themselves to the same economic discipline expected of teachers.

Both arguments are compelling. Certainly any concessions agreed to by union-represented district employees should apply to all other workers as well, starting with the executive offices.

But TPS will not overcome this emergency unless all of the district's constituents endure a good deal of pain. That starts with the constituency that accounts for the vast majority of school spending - its employees.