By eliminating one day from teacher and staff contracts next year, Columbia Public Schools could salvage four literacy coaches, a gifted-education teacher and some part-time employee benefits.

Those are some of the swaps the Columbia Board of Education made last night between prioritized lists of budget cuts during a forum at the central office.

Board members added the reduction of one contract day - a savings of $467,726 - to a list of cuts that will be made next year regardless of whether voters approve a 54-cent levy increase on the April 8 ballot. Two other lists of cuts are proposed if the property tax increase fails.

The board won’t finalize next year’s cuts until a special workshop at 7:30 a.m. April 3. Board members aren’t expected to approve lists two and three until after the election.

Eliminating a contract day next year would enable the board to pull some positions and programs off of the list of inevitable.

Board members Jan Mees and Darin Preis expressed support for keeping four of the eight instructional coaching positions on the chopping block next year. Members said that would be a compromise between the teacher survey feedback that recommended cutting coaches and the feedback board members said they received from teachers who want to keep literacy coaches.

Mees said she’s heard everything from " ‘We love them and can’t live without them’ to ‘What are they doing in my building?’ "

A gifted education teacher also could be spared from cuts next year if voters approve the levy. The board pulled one full-time gifted program instructor from the first round of cuts after hearing much public support for the EEE program.

During public comments, Parkade fifth-grader Zoe Ogden told the board that if the district eliminated any of the gifted teachers, "I wouldn’t be challenged, and if I wasn’t challenged, I would stop going."

The board is recommending that the district offer benefits to part-time employees who work at least 25 hours. That’s still higher than the current policy of 15 hours but lower than the 30-hour cutoff originally recommended.

Members also reduced some of the items included on List One, such as the Minority Achievement Committee Scholars budget and the athletic and activity travel budget.

Instead of cutting $36,285 from MAC Scholars, board President Karla DeSpain suggested cutting only the portion of that allocated for travel. She also suggested reducing a proposed cut that would limit travel for student academic competitions.

Board members agreed they would like classroom teachers to be spared from any of the lists of cuts, but those are the big-ticket items on lists two and three.

"Teachers are willing to sacrifice most anything to keep the class sizes as small as we can," Mees said.

But it will be up to voters to prevent classroom teachers and additional programs from being cut next year, Preis said. "This gets right at the heart of why we need this tax levy," he said. "We’re not playing around. Real expenses are going up, and real revenues are not changing. I don’t want to fear-monger, but that is the reality of these cuts."

Preis repeated his plea for the tax increase throughout last night’s forum. "I’m not above begging for people to pass that tax levy so these things can remain."

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