By Michael D. Clark
The Cincinnati Enquirer

DEERFIELD TWP. - More than two dozen jobs in Kings schools will be cut next school year to help cover a projected budget deficit of $3.6 million in 2006, school officials said Tuesday night.

The deficit is forcing Kings to cut $1 million from its $29 million annual operating budget for each of the next two years, the Kings Board of Education told a crowd of nearly 100 residents at Columbia Elementary. District officials plan to put a 2-mill operating levy on the fall ballot and warned that should it fail, more personnel cuts would follow.

District officials said 27 positions, which will include teachers, school staff, custodial workers and teacher aides, will be cut for next school year. The school board will vote next month on the proposed cuts.

"It's a painful issue when you are dealing with peoples' lives," said Kings Board of Education President Hale Husband.

Lynn Wagner, a curriculum leader for Kings schools, said the district's employees "are very afraid of what might happen."

But district officials assured the capacity crowd that cuts would be coordinated to minimally affect the quality of education in the 3,800-student district, which consistently receives the top state rating of "excellent." A series of public meetings will be held during the next month to brief residents on the budget shortfall.

The board has until August to decide on the operating levy millage for the November ballot. The 2-mill option would cost the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $61 per year in taxes.

In August, toxic lead was discovered on Kings school grounds and a $2 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup, expected to be paid for by the EPA, began earlier this month.

E-mail mclark@enquirer.com