OAKLAND — Rejecting its outgoing superintendent’s initial call for about $25 million to $30 million in budget cuts, the Oakland Unified school board instead approved a scaled-back plan that would shave $14 million out of next school year’s budget.

The $14 million reduction is needed to fund what the district considers essential next year, not what it wishes could be funded, district officials said, referring to outgoing Superintendent Antwan Wilson’s first request to redirect funding to new or expanded programs.

“We took a look at what we have to do, versus what we would like to do,” said the district’s senior business officer, Vernon Hal.

The smaller cut will still result in the loss of district jobs, primarily from the district’s central office, said interim Superintendent Devin Dillon.

“Even though those staff don’t work at … school sites, they are still working their tails off,” she said. “So it’s not as painful as a cut to a school, but it’s still painful. There are our people; these are all our employees.”

The new proposed spending cuts come on top of an immediate hiring freeze and limits on discretionary spending ordered by Wilson earlier this month to try to trim $8 million to $11 million from this school year’s budget.

The new fiscal plan for next year would require that the district make about $4 million in cuts to central office staff, and $5.5 million in other staffing cuts due to revenue lost from decreased student enrollment.

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Another $4 million in savings would come from cutbacks in services to the central office and $500,000 to its supplies.

The staffing cuts to the central office would mean a loss of about 26 full-time-equivalent positions — 24 who work at district headquarters and two who also work at school sites. Of those 11 of which would be nonunion managers, five would be nonunion support staff, eight would be union staff, and 16 would be in nonunion positions that handle confidential employee information, such as those in human resources. Two full-time, nonunion staff positions at school sites are part of the cuts.

What was still not clearly outlined in the district’s proposal, and that worried teachers at the meeting, was where the district would find the $5.5 million in staffing cuts required because of declining enrollment. The district emphasized these types of staffing cuts are done every year when enrollment goes down, but that did not make the teachers feel any better.

Camilo Gaston, a teacher at Roots International Academy, said that his school and others needed clearer details about how budgets of school sites would be impacted by the cuts. He and others in the community spoke about the need for greater transparency in the district’s finances.

Shawna Myers, another teacher at Roots, said that she was worried about how the district’s desire to consolidate schools down the road would impact her small school that shares a campus with Coliseum College Prep Academy at the former Havenscourt Middle School campus. Roots has shown real success in improving students’ reading, she said.

“Consolidation and cutting funding would be devastating to our school and students,” she said.

The budget plan would also reduce school security officers from 20 to 10 districtwide. The 10 positions are vacant and would save the district about $500,000. The plan would allow fewer additional teacher allocations at school sites, which are not based solely on enrollment but on the needs of individual schools, reducing them from 101 positions districtwide to 60.

The board also voted to postpone a potential consolidation of schools to the 2018-2019 school year, rather than starting it next school year at up to six shared campuses, as Wilson first recommended. The board requested the district offer a plan for not just consolidations, but possible expansions and reconfigurations of schools with an eye toward maximizing high-quality programs, not just cutting costs. It also asked the district to provide a community engagement plan to help determine how such changes might best be achieved.

Wilson said the budget cuts are needed to plan ahead for possible future slowdowns in federal and state education funding and further enrollment declines. It is also needed to shore up the district’s reserve, which has dwindled to 2 percent of its general fund, below the school board policy of keeping a 3 percent reserve. The district is also grappling with soaring special education costs due to its large number of out-of-district placements, he said. The district must also make a $6 million mandatory payment owed on $100 million the state loaned the district when it took control in 2003.

The board also voted to extend the same spending limits plan ordered by Wilson earlier this month through next school year. A final budget will be approved by the board in June.