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When hundreds of parents, students, staff and community members filed out of TUSD headquarters late Tuesday night, jubilant that four schools would be spared closure, they missed a budget presentation that spelled out more grief — a projected deficit of at least $15 million — for Tucson's largest school district.

The Tucson Unified School District's chief executive officer, Beatriz Rendon, described cost-saving measures for the 2008-09 school year that include raising previously lowered kindergarten and first-grade class sizes, as well as teacher and staff cuts, program consolidation and across-the-board budget cuts.

On top of that, it remains unclear how TUSD and other districts will fund a multimillion-dollar state mandate for four hours of English instruction for English-language learners next year.

The shortfall means school closures will come up again at TUSD, officials and governing board members said Wednesday.

TUSD Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer said he wished the board and the community had heard Rendon's presentation before the school-closure vote took place.

The report was delivered to the board under the assumption that up to $4 million might have been saved by the school closures. The decision to not close the schools, or at least not begin the process, doesn't change the plan, Rendon said, but will prompt further scrutiny.

"We're still looking at the same cost-savings measures, but we have to take a deeper dive," she said.

Rendon has five cost-saving measures, some of which already have been put in place.

For example, she wants the district to implement a performance-based budget, which means departments will have to account for all their expenses instead of basing budgets on the previous year's. Recommendations likely to cause parental concern, such as larger class sizes, have not yet been implemented.

Rendon's plan startled some, including Steve Courter, president of the Tucson Education Association, the union that represents teachers and classified staff.

"Never have I heard such open and serious discussion of a reduction in work force," Courter said.

Under Rendon's "alternate formula proposals," schools will be informed how many full-time, non-teaching positions they can afford and decide what positions to cut.

"In order to go into the next fiscal year with a balanced budget, given the projected budget deficit, which is in the double-digit-millions figure, we need to look at staffing levels, departmentally and school-wide," she said.

Four departments — accountability and research; engineering, facilities and planning; exceptional education; and transportation — will need to defend their expenditures, Rendon said, while departments and programs across the district will be forced to reduce their budgets by 10 percent.

An appeals process will be included, she added, because some departments already are barely getting by with current staffing levels.

There are 55 departments and schools that receive desegregation funds, Rendon said. All will have to explain their share.

"Every department and school receiving desegregation monies will have to justify their use of those monies from the bottom up," she said.

Last, program consolidation likely will take place.

TUSD's smaller-class-size initiative could change from a teacher-student ratio of 1-to-18 to 1-to-24 in all kindergarten and first-grade classes, she said. District funding for the Opening Minds Through the Arts program also is in jeopardy, Pfeuffer said. Within TUSD's alternative education department, leased sites and class spaces that aren't full likely will be given up and moved into open space elsewhere, Rendon said.

"We're not looking at trimming, we're looking at chopping," Pfeuffer said. "It's not what departments can you trim from, it's what departments aren't expendable."

Federal funding also will be reallocated, with increased distribution of funds for students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals, as well as increased focus on certification for highly qualified teachers under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

District officials note that they're still facing the implementation of a state mandate that calls for four-hour English blocks for English-language learners. The mandate, said Steve Holmes, TUSD's assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, will affect classes, teachers and the smaller-class-size initiative.

"That's a big unknown variable right now, as well as if the state will actually fund it," he said.

Meanwhile, Pfeuffer and board members warn that school closures are inevitable.

"We have not seen the last of the school closures," said Governing Board member Bruce Burke. "I've come to the conclusion that the last options are upon us, and this needs to be part of the mix."

Joel Ireland, who cast the vote preventing school closures next year, said economics are not reason enough to shutter a school, but conceded TUSD will likely close schools in the future.

In a surprising move Tuesday night, Ireland proposed initiating public discussion of closing not only Corbett, Ochoa, Rogers and Wrights-town elementary schools, but also Naylor Middle and Rincon High schools.

Burke worried that the longer school-closure discussions are put off, the more difficult the impact will be on the communities and neighborhoods that will lose schools.

Given the economic forecast and budget concerns, the deficit and recommended cuts shouldn't surprise the public, said Bruce Slabaugh, head of TUSD's blue-collar union.

"They can only put this off for so long. Sooner or later, something's got to give," he said. "If the public wants reduced class sizes, small schools and special programs, they need to figure out how to pay for it."