The inevitable budget crisis is hitting Evanston/Skokie School District 65 again after the district managed to avoid cuts last year.

District officials and teachers said they blame the city’s tax structure for the projected $1.6 million deficit for the 2004-05 school year. In order to balance the budget, District 65 notified 70 teachers last week that their jobs may be cut next year.

Two years ago D65 made similar cuts. About 30 teachers were fired, and school board president Mary Luecke said the final number of teachers let go should be the same this year. Cutting a teaching position saves the district about $50,000 per year, Luecke said.

Julie Drew, a fourth-grade teacher at Washington Elementary, said the budget problems are a result of Evanston’s tax-capped funding formula. The city’s tax caps limit the amount of taxes placed on residential property and local businesses. During economic hard times, schools receive insufficient funding because of the caps, Drew said.

“It’s not because the board made a bad decision,” she said. “No one is willing to bite the bullet and change the system. Everyone is edging away and hoping the problem will just go away.”

Luecke said D65 has struggled with budget issues throughout her 20 years with the district, but the implementation of the tax caps in the early 1990s made the budget a more pressing problem.

“It’s always an issue now,” Luecke said.

D65 budget problems only have been exacerbated in the past few years because of the struggling economy, Luecke said. With district expenses growing faster than tax revenues, she said the only way the district can make ends meet is to cut positions and programs.

But Drew said cutting programs and firing teachers alone will not solve the problem.

“This is just a symptom of the problem,” she said. “We are just nursing it along. We are in permanent crisis.”

Evanston has been trying to renovate its downtown area in order to attract more revenue in recent years.

But these efforts have not generated any benefits to the school district, Luecke said. At the school board’s Friday meeting, she said many of the benefits will not be seen until six years from now.

Drew said that is far too long to wait.

“If this happened at Old Orchard, they would fix it in 10 minutes,” Drew said. “But since it’s the school district, they don’t care, and that’s just the general attitude.”

Carla LaRochelle, a fourth-grade teacher at Washington Elementary, said many of her co-workers are worried they may lose their jobs because of the budget cuts.

“I’ve been teaching for 18 years so I stay quite insulated,” she said. “I just make the classroom the best place I can, but I know that other people must feel scared about losing their jobs.”

But even tenured teachers could lose their jobs, LaRochelle said. If a program is cut, then a teacher who is only qualified to teach in that subject area may be cut as well.

“They took drama out of kindergarten to third grade two years ago,” LaRochelle said. “And there is a rumor that they will cut it from the fourth and fifth grade level.”

LaRochelle said other programs that are likely to be cut include foreign languages, industrial technology and art. Drew said district officials often see these classes as just “thrills.”

Final decisions on the programs and number of positions eliminated will be determined at the May 10 school board meeting.