Several weeks after the Oak Harbor School District announced the elimination of 18 teaching positions, it is other employees’ turn to lose their jobs.

The district is cutting support staff to balance its 2007-2008 school year budget. Affected instructional assistants, custodians and bus drivers will receive formal notification of a layoff at the end of the week.

The school board eliminated 28 new positions Monday night. Officials are busy juggling how those reductions will play out.

Clover Valley Elementary School is set to close at the end of the school year. That closure meant eliminating 17 classified positions. In addition to the eliminated positions at Clover Valley, a high school career specialist, four bus drivers, a custodian and a custodian supervisor position were also axed. The bus drivers were cut partly as a result of recent elementary school boundary line adjustments.

The recent reductions saved approximately $788,000 on next year’s budget.

In all the school district had to make $2.3 million worth of reductions in its approximately $46.8 million budget. Early budget numbers indicated the reductions could be as high as $3.5 million. Money came in higher than expected but cuts already announced will continue.

Because many Clover Valley Elementary employees had seniority, administrators had to make room for them by laying off 17 less-experienced employees.

“We have to match those one for one,” said Mellody Matthes, human resources director for the Oak Harbor School District.

People can start bidding on the open positions starting next week and Matthes hopes to have the process completed by the end of the school year.

“There is a lot of anxiety out there. A lot of people don’t know what’s going on,” Matthes said.

Those words were echoed by Clover Valley Elementary first grade teacher Kaelan Anderson.

“Our classified staff at Clover Valley Elementary is facing a tremendous amount of anxiety,” Anderson said during the Monday evening board meeting, adding that those employees don’t deserve to move into positions that require lesser qualifications.

The school officials and the Public School Employees Union had to negotiate how to accomplish the reductions. The union contract didn’t include language about cutbacks due to a school closure. The two groups came to an agreement after two meetings.

Matthes said seniority was the dominating factor to determine who would be laid off.

With the layoff decision made, the school district and the union can start negotiating a renewal to the contract that expires next August. Negotiations will begin in the coming weeks. When the union’s contract came up several years ago, school employees worked five months without a contract before the sides could agree.

Linda Preder, PSE co-president, said she hopes a fair contract can be reached and that the Clover Valley employees will have a job. She would also like to see safeguards put into place to prevent such drastic cuts in the future.

Monday’s decision was the latest action needed to resolve the budget shortfall that resulted from several different factors.

Enrollment in Oak Harbor has declined for years and that trend is expected to continue. That translates into less money from the state.

While state money is dwindling, employee costs are increasing. The school district is required to give all staff a 3.7 percent pay increase regardless of the budget problems.

In addition, the school board has dipped into the fund balance in recent years in an effort to postpone drastic cuts.

But this year, time ran out.