Hawai'i schools superintendent Patricia Hamamoto said the budget cuts Gov. Linda Lingle outlined yesterday will leave the school system with about $162 million a year less than previously anticipated.

"I've been in the department for 30-plus years, and we've had cuts before, but nothing to the depth that we're looking at now," Hamamoto said. "Every parent ought to be concerned. We're going through some cuts that we've never experienced before."

The $162 million in cuts applies to the next two school years and is on top of about $60 million that the state Legislature had already cut from the school budget for those two years.

The Legislature had approved a $1.8 billion budget for the Department of Education for the next two years.

Hamamoto was unable to say exactly how the public school system plans to deal with the budget reduction. However, over the next few weeks, the DOE is likely to seek a combination of cost- saving measures including furloughs, increased class sizes, salary cuts and cuts to school-level programs.

Hamamoto appeared to rule out the possibility of any layoffs within the DOE.

"That's something that I thought was very clear in the governor's message," she said. "Layoffs were not something that she had envisioned."

FURLOUGHS UNLIKELY

It's unlikely that Hamamoto would recommend that the state Board of Education institute a three-day-per-month furlough similar to other state departments.

Hamamoto said that would be the equivalent of 27 school days a year.

"That's a whole lot of learning time that we would need to consider," she said. "That's not acceptable."

Board of Education Chairman Garrett Toguchi said the board is likely to reconsider previous cost-saving proposals, such as cutting up to six school days from the calendar, saving some $25 million. The board had also considered a proposal to increase average class size by one student to 27, which would amount to about $10 million in savings.

Toguchi said the board will have a hard time figuring out where an additional $162 million a year in cuts will come from.

"We had a hard time coming up with $40 million to cut," Toguchi said. "All programs will be on the table," he said.

Options include cutting into what's called "categorical programs," which include extracurricular activities and athletics. Education officials will also be conducting a review of some 430 private contracts, including contracts with outside consultants who work with schools that are facing sanctions under No Child Left Behind.

Toguchi also said the board will continue to examine closing and consolidating small schools.

"Really, we don't see a lot of savings coming from school consolidation, not to the extent we're talking about," he said.

University of Hawai'i officials were unable to immediately say by how much UH would be expected to reduce its budget. Spokeswoman Carolyn Tanaka said the university's Board of Regents and campus chancellors will be reviewing the governor's directives.