COEUR d'ALENE - If Idaho schools chief Tom Luna's Students Come First education reform legislation is enacted, the Coeur d'Alene School District projects it will lose 61 teaching positions by 2016.

A financial impact analysis prepared by district office administrators was presented to trustees at their regular board meeting Monday.

Superintendent Hazel Bauman told trustees there is interest in the community in putting together a local task force to explore what other options may be available for dealing with the state education funding shortfalls, and likely further budget cuts.

Bauman said Luna's Students Come First plan is one solution with positive and negative aspects.

"What else could we do? What other solutions are out there besides the shift from staff to technology?" Bauman said.

Bauman told The Press that part of the difficulty is that Luna's plan represents a further loss of local control of funds.

Districts have never been given the opportunity to voluntarily trim their teaching staffs and retain the savings realized because the state's funding method for teachers requires that districts use what the funding formula allows them, or lose it.

"The money would have stayed here. It's all going to be at the state level," Bauman said. "We're going to be told how it's going to be spent."

Steve Briggs, the district's finance chief, explained the financial implications of Luna's plan to trustees at Monday's meeting.

"You have to understand that what they're doing is, they're shifting funding and changing from the model that we currently use, and dealing with it in a new fashion," Briggs said.

The information presented was prepared with guidance from the Idaho State Department of Education.

The state's formula for determining how much money a district receives for instructional staff - teachers and anyone whose position requires certification - is based on "support units" which are generated by the number and needs of a district's students.

The proposed reform legislation changes the formula to allow for an increase, over a two-year period, of two students per teacher, and a subsequent loss of support units.

For the Coeur d'Alene School District, that translates into a loss of 41 teaching positions, three principals and 14 support staff positions - librarians, classroom and playground aides, crossing guards, secretaries, tech support, custodians and bus drivers - by 2013.

The new education legislation's provision of a laptop, referred to as a "mobile computing device," for each ninth-grader, and the requirement that high school students take six online courses in order to graduate, means a further reduction in the district's teaching staff.

School officials in Coeur d'Alene anticipate the loss of five teaching positions each year for four years as ninth-graders receive their devices, for an additional reduction of 20 teaching positions by fiscal year 2016.

The $2.8 million the district will no longer receive to pay for staff positions will be redeployed by the state and distributed to the district to pay for the other facets of the education reform plan. The bulk of those funds - including an additional $692,465 from the state by 2013 - are designated for technology upgrades and to pay for performance bonuses for teachers working in hard-to-fill positions, taking on leadership duties, or working in schools that show academic growth.

"Every school district in the state has been encouraged to follow this same format in terms of identifying what impacts may or may not be for each of the districts," Briggs said.

If the Students Come First legislation is not enacted, the district will lose $1.2 million in state funds each year for the next two years.

The situation is likely more dire though, since the calculations were based on Gov. Butch Otter's initial education budget recommendation made last month when the overall state budget deficit was forecast to be $35 million. Since then, the deficit projection has bloomed to $185 million, and could mean significant cuts to the state's education budget.

In other news:

* Trustees unanimously renewed Superintendent Bauman's contract.

* There are two new community chats scheduled. The first will take place Feb. 24 at 7:30 a.m., and another on March 2 at 5:30 p.m. Both will be held at the Midtown Meeting Center.