With a budget of $5.2 million in 2009-2010, the potential cuts are 8.5 percent of the district's total expenditures last year.

Furthermore, the cuts could set in as late as Oct. 1, long after the district's budget is adopted on July 15.

Rather than laying off teachers, Superintendent Karl Uterhardt said the cuts would affect student supplies, such as textbooks, computers, and teacher's salaries.

Uterhardt said teacher layoffs could cramp Tombstone's classrooms and harm the students' learning.

"When classroom sizes get beyond 30, it becomes difficult for the teachers and the students," said Uterhardt. "It's important to be creative when dealing with budget cuts and to find ways around cutting positions."

While experts agree reducing the teacher to student ratio has negative effects, Tucson Unified School District officials warn that cuts to student resources can be just as damaging.

"It's been proven that if we have resources, we can drive performance," said TUSD governing board member Miguel Cuevas. "Computers play a huge role in performance and cutting these funds can be detrimental to the education process."

On Tuesday Cuevas voted for an improvement plan that led to half of Rincon High School's teachers being laid off. Budget cuts have resulted in thousands of teacher layoffs throughout the state over the last few years.

Tombstone did not lay off teachers because of budget cuts last year. Instead, the district added a middle school position to shrink classroom sizes from 35 to 28 students.

Extra funds from a ten percent enrollment increase in 2009-2010 helped the district reduce its cuts to $86,000, 1.6 percent of the district's total expenditures.

Uterhardt said Tombstone schools have seen slight growth this year, but not enough to put a dent in the predicted budget cuts.

The projected $450,000 in cuts hinge on whether the federal
government rejects Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's $541 million Medicaid waiver. If the waiver is rejected, the state will take money from education to provide health care to Arizona's 280,000 low-income residents.

"Education is the likely target," said Brewer spokesperson Matthew Benson. "It's one of the biggest areas where the state spends money."

The Governor submitted the waiver last month asking the federal government in order to make up for the state budget deficit.