Wausau School District leaders say they've found away to make up for their $3 million budget deficit.

The District's Operations Committee met Tuesday to finalize their list of suggestions to make up for the budget short fall.

One of the recommendations is not filling positions left open by retiring teachers.

The Superintendent Stephen Murley says he's proud of the way district leaders have handled the challenge of balancing the needs of the students with the deficit.

At a meeting Monday night the district announced 18 teachers are retiring this year and three others are leaving the district.

"Collectively we have 21 people choosing to leave the district and by replacing as few of them as possible, it cuts our budget deficit almost in half," says Murley.

The 10 cuts will be at the high school level, but they won't be from core subjects like English and Math.

He says that will allow them to maintain or reduce class sizes at all of their elementary schools.

To make up for the fewer teachers, the committee also recommended giving teachers at the middle and high school levels a 6th teaching assignment.

This means if a teacher has 120 students, instead of spreading them out into five classes with 24 students, they could be spread into 6 classes with 20 students each.

Murley says this could help keep class sizes low and help the district continue to offer students a number of elective classes.

"It could be a significantly higher burden for the teachers, however there are some instructional areas where a 6th assignment can include the same number of students already assigned to that teacher. That would allow smaller classes and prevent teachers from having an increase in the number of students they supervise."

The full board will review these recommendations at their next meeting in April.