The Charleston School Board will vote on Phase Three of the budget adjustments at 6:30 p.m. today in Charleston High School gymnasium.

The school board will look at position reductions, said Jim Littleford, superintendent of the Charleston School District. The reductions within the budget could save the school approximately $702,000 annually.

The school board called a special meeting on March 3 to discuss the different options for reducing costs in areas of the school’s budget.

“It was really an open meeting, there were some people who spoke prior to the meeting about different issues, whether they were supporting a teacher, a program or different ways for us to look at cuts,” Littleford said.

One of the areas the board discussed was absorbing resignations, retirements and reductions of force, Littleford said.

“When I say absorb, I mean not hiring anyone to replace the position,” Littleford said. “Instead we may make class sizes a bit larger at the elementary level or transfer people into those positions from within the district.”

This year, the school district has had seven resignations and is looking to eliminate six to seven positions.

“We may be able to eliminate those positions and still move those people into the positions within the resignations or retirements,” Littleford said.

At the last meeting, the board discussed two full-time positions and one part-time position to eliminate. These included a business teacher and a social studies position at the high school-both due to numbers and declining enrollment-and a part-time special education teacher at the preschool level.

“This position is an every year thing, this depends on the number of kids coming into preschool every year that are tested,” Littleford said.

No action was taken at this meeting.

However, the board will be voting to support or decline Littleford’s recommendations on staff cuts at today’s meeting.

“What I will be doing is making recommendations, it becomes an open board to decide if they are going to support that recommendation or not,” Littleford said.

At the meeting, Littleford will make the recommendation not to rehire these positions.

A non-union position, the energy management position, will be added to the list as well.

“I will be recommending that that person take a reduction in pay,” Littleford said.

Audience members will be invited to speak to communicate questions or concerns they may have before the board makes the final vote, Littleford said. The board will also talk about possibly increasing the school’s athletic fee and will ask to establish a special meeting March 24 to discuss different athletic program cuts for this year and how to approach a plan for years to come.

Kayleigh Zyskowski can be reached at 581-7943 or kzyskowski@eiu.edu.