MARIETTA - Increasing class sizes, six furlough days for teachers, and eliminating buses and stops are all on Superintendent Fred Sanderson's short list of likely cuts to Cobb County School District's fiscal year 2011 budget.

Sanderson announced the possible cuts at a community forum on Tuesday night at Campbell High School. It was the second in a series of forums to inform the public about the budget for FY11, which begins July 1. The list of cuts added up to $100 million, although the superintendent speculated that the budget deficit would likely be around $130 million when the final numbers come in from the state.

District officials admitted that increasing class sizes, which is expected to save about $53 million, goes hand-in-hand with teacher layoffs.

Several newer Cobb teachers, such as Rebecca Lee, asked board members how they plan to cut teachers and expressed worry that newer teachers would lose their jobs first, despite glowing yearly reviews.

Sanderson and several board members assured the teachers that seniority would not be the only thing taken into account when deciding about layoffs.

"I agree with you, it's not about last hire, first fire," Board member Holli Cash said. "We're not going to do that, I'm sure. The board wouldn't recommend that."

Later, Lee said that the feeling among most teachers was of frustration and uncertainty.

"It's just very frustrating being in limbo and wondering if I have a job or not," she said.

Another teacher asked Sanderson if he plans to lay off art teachers. The superintendent said the district is looking at ways to keep those who teach classes required for graduation first, but said there's no recommendation yet to layoff specific positions.

When asked, Sanderson said he could not project a set number of teachers who would be laid off at this point, since the district, which educates more than 106,000 students in 114 schools, does not yet know how many teachers will be retiring.

In addition to the estimated $53 million in savings the district would see by increasing class sizes, the six furlough days would save around $19 million, officials said. An item listed as a reduction in central office and central support would save the district around $8.1 million and is broken down into specifics like reducing approximately 45 central office supervisory, support and clerical positions, and reducing an additional 23 central support positions.

Several other items top the list and help the district reach $100 million, such as, eliminating 100 buses and corresponding routes, saving $2.9 million; delayed salary increases for eligible employees, saving $5 million; reducing 112 custodial positions, $3.9 million; and restricting alternative education programs, $2.3 million.

For FY10, which ends June 30, the school district has budgeted expenditures of $882 million and has $67 million in reserves, officials said.

Sanderson unveiled his list of likely cuts in FY11 on a large screen for the roughly 100 concerned teachers, administrators, parents and residents in attendance to see - or at least he tried to. When the list went up, the text was so small that most of the attendees groaned and complained they couldn't even make out the words.

Luckily, several teachers in the audience had received the list of cuts from their principals earlier in the day and were poised to ask Sanderson and board members specific questions. District officials showed a short budget video and took questions both from the audience and from laptops provided to the public prior to the meeting. District spokesmen Doug Goodwin and Jay Dillon relayed laptop question to the board.

Although a few teachers and community members brought up the idea of lobbying legislators to repeal the property tax exemption for Cobb County residents over the age of 62, Sanderson wanted to make it clear that it was not his intentions to repeal it. He said the district is still required to pay a millage rate to the state based on the exempted tax dollars, which adds up to about $17 million annually.

"What I would like to see is that we're excluded in paying our local fair share against those dollars," Sanderson said. "And that's a revenue stream of $17 million annually that we would be receiving that we do not get funding for because we're penalized by the state paying on those exemptions. Now I support the exemptions and I'm a Cobb County citizen, just like everybody else."

One community member, Gary Osbourne, said the citizens were dreaming if they thought there was any chance that the legislators would vote to repeal the exemption.

"I want you to know that it's a pipedream if you think the 62 senior exemption is going away. The more time we spend discussing it, the less time we're going to have on balancing the budget," Osbourne told the crowd.

The district has maintained that this was a legislative decision made in the 1970s, and the school board has no authority to repeal or revamp the exemption.

While Sanderson did announce his tentative plan for cuts, he made it clear to the crowd that nothing has been set in stone and the board has not yet acted any of his proposed ideas.

Following the meeting, Dr. John Crooks, who was appointed the board's budget liaison by Chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle, said he has been traveling around to schools throughout the district speaking with teachers and administrators about their budget concerns. Crooks said he and the other board members were not consulted in the creation of the list, and that he thought the superintendent's action to distribute it publicly was a bit premature.

All of the board members, except for Alison Bartlett and Dr. John Abraham, attended the forum, along with district CFO Mike Addison.