The Avonworth School District will eliminate 15 aide positions in the next school year, the first step in budget cuts that could encompass an end to full-day kindergarten, salary freezes, and a request for voluntary concessions from union employees.

The financial picture became bleaker with the announcement of Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed budget, which cuts sharply into educational funding. Avonworth director of fiscal management Brad Waters said that the state's proposed budget cuts more than $500,000 from Avonworth's revenue sources by eliminating grants and reducing reimbursements. The governor's plan to reduce charter school tuition reimbursement, alone, will cost Avonworth about $75,000 next year, Waters said.

Avonworth already has applied to the Pennsylvania Department of Education for exceptions from the Act 1 referendum rule that would allow the district to increase property taxes by a maximum of .89 mills without voter approval. The revenue from that full increase will go a ways -- about $618,000, according to board treasurer Frank Mucha -- towards eliminating the current $1.3 million budget deficit, but not far enough. The school board and administration are looking to cost cuts to produce much of the needed revenue.

"We cannot maintain our current programs and balance the budget," said board member Eric Templin, who said that the district was facing a $700,000 deficit before the governor's proposed budget was added to the mix.

The cost-cutting effort began at Monday night's school board meeting, where the board approved the elimination of 15 aide positions: two high school instructional aides, four at the middle school, seven at the elementary school and two library aides for the 2011-12 school year.

Two new aide positions will be created, however, one for kindergarten and another at the middle school to focus on incoming sixth graders, according to superintendent Dr. Valerie McDonald.

Board member David Oberdick pointed out that the district is not eliminating any aide positions related to students with special needs.

McDonald said that the move will leave aides for all students in grades K-5, establish one "transitional aide" for grades 6-8, and leave two of four aides at the high school.

The staff reduction will save Avonworth about $220,000 next year, McDonald said.

The board also is considering eliminating full-day kindergarten at Avonworth, which would eliminate three teaching positions at a cost of about $60,000 - $70,000 per teacher, per year, McDonald said.

Waters said that freezing the wages of non-union personnel would net Avonworth about $52,000 in the coming year. Oberdick said that union employees could be asked to make voluntary concessions.

Oberdick also said that the board was considering making athletics "pay to play," an idea board member Jeff Schmid rejected as pushing the cost back on the taxpayers in another way.

Although Avonworth has not committed to using the entire .89 mill tax increase that could be permitted by the state, Waters said that the preliminary budget, which still features a sizeable deficit, incorporates all the revenue that can be derived from a full increase.

"I'll go on record now that I will do that," Templin said of increasing taxes.

"We can't keep doing that every year," said Schmid. An opponent of the primary center building project, Schmid noted that some $2 million currently is set aside in a building fund. He again suggested unused space at the middle school to relieve overcrowding at the grade school. The opening of a primary center will add two teaching, one secretarial and one custodian positions to the budget in the future, he said, which could cost $200,000 a year.

"The decisions are going to be tough, and we do not want to make them in a vacuum," said board president Brenda Barlek, who urged taxpayers to contact the board with their thoughts and concerns.

"They need to tell us," Barlek said. "They need to come in and tell us."

Oberdick agreed that the board needed to hear from residents about "what interests are important."

McDonald said that "the mood was very somber" at a recent national conference of school administrators she had attended, where she spoke with administrators who were being forced to cut millions of dollars from their budgets.

The school district hopes to post a letter to the community on its Web site by the end of the week, explaining the budget process and financial challenges.

Whatever the challenges, the annual tax increases are troublesome for senior citizens in the district, according to Ohio Township resident Bill Jackson. "We're worried," he told the school board.