MARIETTA - Two school board members continued to vent frustration Wednesday over Superintendent Fred Sanderson's announcement of "likely cuts" to the district's budget for next year.

"I'm relieved that the information is out and it's something we can now work from, because I had been pushing for this since January," member Alison Bartlett said. "But I don't like the way we operate, where information comes out that looks like the board has approved this when they are seeing it about the first time everybody else is seeing it."

"I hate to say it, but that's standard operating procedure since I've been on the board," Bartlett said. "Superintendent Sanderson has always provided the information to the board at the same time he's provided it to the principals."

She and several other board members said Sanderson e-mailed the proposal to them at the same time he sent it to the district's principals. The superintendent had not consulted with Dr. John Crooks, who is the budget liaison between the board and district staff.

Holli Cash, the board's vice chair, and member David Morgan said they did not have time to review the list before Tuesday night's public budget forum at Campbell High School.

On Tuesday night, Crooks lamented what he called Sanderson's premature release.

"I thought it was premature; I still think it was premature," Crooks said Wednesday. "I thought they should come to the board of education first, before being distributed to the public and principals."

As the board's budget liaison, Crooks said he has been and will continue to visit schools to meet with principals, teachers and faculty members about their cashflow concerns.

Board Chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle said she was not at all surprised or unnerved by the superintendent's announcement on Tuesday and looks at the likely cuts as a jumping off point.

"Those have been things that have been throwing around," Crowder-Eagle said. "I don't think anything was a real surprise. This is tentative; this is proposed. I think it's a framework for us to begin our conversations, and we needed a framework."

Cutting at least 45 "supervisory, support and clerical" jobs in the district's central office were among the proposals Sanderson released Tuesday.

On Wednesday, he did not respond to questions regarding exactly which jobs are likely to be cut. The district has 11 department heads, who earn on average $127,000 per year, and six area superintendents who earn an average of about $116,000 per year.

The superintendent also said Tuesday night that when the final numbers come in from the state legislature, he expects that the deficit will be closer to $130 million, meaning more cuts.

The district is projected to spend about $882 million this year, so a $100 million reduction for next year would put the budget at $782 million.

One person at Tuesday's forum asked Sanderson and Mike Addison, the district's chief financial officer, when the district last had a budget close to what the district will have for fiscal year 2011, which begins July 1.

"It's been 10 years or so," Addison said. And Sanderson said that in that time, the district's student population has grown by more than 10,000 students.

However, according to Journal archives, the district's 2006 budget was about $744 million, and the district had 104,000 students - just 2,000 fewer than it has now.

In 2001, the district's budget was $587 million.

The board has called a budget meeting for 4:30 p.m. today, shortly before tonight's regular board meeting.

"I think we'll listen to each board member and see what their constituents have been telling them," Crowder-Eagle said of today's meeting. "We will discuss what we value the most - what are our non-negotiables."