Now is your chance to tell the Kent School District where to cut an estimated $6 million to $7 million from the 2011-2012 budget.

The district has scheduled a Community Budget Session and Public Hearing to discuss the potential cuts. The meeting is from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 29 at the Kentwood High School gym, 25800 164th Ave. S.E., in Covington.

“Community input is very important to us as our school board members wrestle with these decisions,” said Kent School Board President Bill Boyce in a school district media release. “We have a great district here and we are certainly not overstaffed, but with these reductions coming at us from our government funders, we are going to have to make some very hard decisions which could very well mean the loss of some great programs and the great people that run them.”

Residents also can fill out an online budget survey at www.kent.k12.wa.us/budget to show what programs they would cut. Surveys also are available at any Kent school. Surveys are due to the district by April 8.

The list of proposed reductions on the survey includes reduction of central office staff; elimination of elementary music, orchestra and band programs; elimination of seventh-grade sports programs; elimination of elementary physical education program as currently structured so that classroom teachers would take over P.E. instruction; cut positions from the K-6 enhancement program; cutting one assistant principal from each high school; and cut one counselor or librarian staff at each middle school.

Superintendent Edward Lee Vargas told the school board at its March 23 meeting that he and other district-level administrators would voluntarily accept two days of pay cuts through furlough days to help the district cut costs.

“The workload will not be reduced, but the amount of time to do it and the compensation for it will,” Vargas said in the media release. “To put it simply, for our organization to be financially sound, we are all going to have to adapt in some way.”

Vargas also recommended a $2.7 million cut at the district’s central office. That cut is part of the proposed reductions on the online survey.

Funding cuts by the federal and state governments has caused the projected budget shortfall for the district.

“Olympia can’t give us solid numbers right now, but the message is clear, significant state reductions are coming and we must be ready,” Vargas said.

For more information, go to the Kent School District website at http://www.kent.k12.wa.us.