Oregon's largest school district would cut roughly 70 teachers and do away with a slew of central administration jobs under a proposed $591 million spending plan that Portland Public Schools Interim Superintendent Bob McKean proposed Tuesday.

Most of the teacher cuts would hit the district's nine high schools, which together would lose 47 teaching positions.

McKean's proposal (.pdf) assumes the district will have $23 million less than it would need to keep all current programs and services and set aside enough for emergencies. That's largely because state funding is anticipated to fall short.

It's an estimate that requires guesswork, as Portland Public Schools must finalize its budget before it finds out how much money it will get from the state. Additionally, union negotiations make planning hard to predict.

"No cuts are good. This is the best we can do with the money we have," McKean told reporters. "It certainly isn't as dire as it was in the early 2010-2012 era when it was very dire and very bleak. But this is not a good thing,"

Although the district expects to draw in about 2 percent more money next school year than this one, McKean says it should spend only 1 percent more, even as costs rise, in order to sock away $24 million to cover unexpected costs.

One small cause for some of the district's budget woes? Poor students are being pushed out of the Portland district. The district expects to lose $800,000 in federal Title I funding to serve disadvantaged students.The district intends to use its own money to continue providing extra support at high poverty schools.

"While you may lose some of the kids in certain schools you still need a lot of support in these schools. You can't just cut them off immediately," Deputy Chief Executive Office Yousef Awwad said. "We've been seeing cuts in Title I funding. Gentrification is a big reason why. We're losing a lot of kids who are historically underserved."

Under McKean's proposal, school libraries would no longer be required to be open all week. Now the standard would be at least half the week. The district plans to continue to fall short of state requirements, slated to kick in next year, for how much physical education schools must provide per week.

Some efforts will get a boost, however. Portland Public Schools will expand its new reading and writing program to more elementary and K-8 schools, sinking $400,000 into literacy assessments, $900,000 into literacy coaches, and $900,000 into curriculum development. It spent millions to begin the program at 10 schools last fall.

"The literacy coaches we definitely are preserving," McKean said. "In fact we're adding 10 more."

Although the budget means a hit to school staffing, the budget is based on a plan to have more competitive teacher salaries. Union negotiations are underway and Awwad said the budget is based on the assumption that there will be 3 percent cost-of-living increases. Not giving a cost-of-living increase wasn't even part of the debate, he said. Portland teacher pay has been below market and not giving the raises would dig them into a deeper hole in the long run, he said.

"This is a philosophical thing we talked about early on in the process," McKean said. "We simply have to be able to compete for the best teachers."

Competitive salaries have been a point of discussion in Portland Public Schools, with the school board giving raises to non-union employees last year.

McKean said the district tried to keep cuts far from the classroom, hacking away 59 positions in central office, saving about $5 million and eliminating 20 contracts, to the tune of about $1.7 million.

Central office positions that would be slashed include purchasing staff, the assistant budget director, clerical positions, an assistant superintendent position and combining the chief of modernization and chief of operations jobs into one role.

Most of those jobs that would be cut are vacant. Portland Public Schools has had a glut of central office vacancies for the past school year. As interim superintendent, McKean has focused on trying to restructure central office and said these cuts served some of those aims.

Want to follow the budget process? Here's what's on deck:

-- Listening Session April 11, 5 p.m. at Madison High School

-- Listening Session April 25, 5 p.m. at Blanchard Education Services Center

-- Listening Session May 9, 5 p.m. at Blanchard Education Services Center

-- Board work session May, undecided

-- School board to consider the budget on May 23

-- Budget hearing on June 13

-- School board plans to adopt a budget by June 13

-- Bethany Barnes

Got a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email Bethany: bbarnes@oregonian.com