The Charlottesville city schools efficiency study was supposed to appease budget hawks and confirm what everyone thought they knew about the school system. Instead, it has unleashed a Pandora’s box of possible changes that has riled faculty, staff and parents.

Like many, School Board member Llezelle Dugger thought the efficiency study, commissioned in the spring of 2008, would address two common questions she heard on the campaign trail in 2007: whether to restructure the system to do away with Walker Upper Elementary, and whether central office was top heavy?

But instead of either of those, Florida-based consulting company MGT of America unfurled 62 recommendations that included these stunners: Close an elementary school (annual savings: $467,000); cut six assistant principals (savings: $579,000); eliminate 13 teachers to increase class size (savings: $686,000); and get rid of 62 teachers aides, half of those currently employed (savings: $1.3 million). Though those are only four of the recommendations, they make up 88 percent of the projected $3.4 million annual savings.

“I don’t know how many e-mails I’ve gotten,” says Dugger. “People are panicking.” She tells them not to worry—these are just recommendations. The big items won’t happen this budget cycle, which is already too far along to incorporate them, and any major decisions will be vetted with the full gamut of town halls, task forces and public meetings.

Possibly the most surprising recommendation is the one that wasn’t made. MGT says that the central office should be restructured but that it is not overstaffed when compared to a peer group of Winchester, Fredericksburg and Williamsburg-James City.

“I did scratch my head a bit about how they compared the central office administration,” says School Board member Kathleen Galvin. “I just want to make sure the logic is sound.” The School Board has requested clarifications from MGT about that recommendation, and should have them by its January 22 meeting.

The anxiety created in the city schools by the study’s results—an anxiety evidenced by lengthy school faculty meetings, bitter online comments, and Dugger’s inbox—stands in sharp contrast to the experience of Albemarle County Schools, which set the trend for efficiency studies in 2007.

“Most of the feedback was very positive,” says county School Board Chair Brian Wheeler. “What we immediately started hearing from our constituents was, ‘How quickly will you start to implement these things?’” He says 80 percent of the recommendations will be in place or under serious study by the end of this budget season.

The recommendations from the county schools study, conducted by VCU’s Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute, included cuts to central office, in addition to changes to bus routes and facilities. That helped set the expectation in the city that central office would get the heftiest focus.

Two other factors are putting extra pressure on city schools. First, unlike the county schools, city schools must enact 50 percent of the recommendations in two years or else they have to pay back a $30,000 state grant. Second, the budget woes that are hammering state and local government have created considerable fear.

Dugger tries to allay those concerns: “We have two years to meet our obligations. The Board is not going to act on anything that’s going to have a major impact without a full blown discussion.” The first town hall meeting to directly address the recommendations will be in March.

But with Governor Tim Kaine proposing $700 million in K-12 school cuts over the next two years, is it time to consider the most radical efficiency proposal out there—consolidating city and county schools? It’s something that has been on Wheeler’s mind “given the cooperation between the schools and the economic challenges we both face.”

“It’s going to require a lot of interest by city residents to really see that as a positive way to operate our public schools,” says Wheeler. “But we’ve got two localities that are very similar. The demographics are different in the city, but that doesn’t scare me at all. What is the same is the passion and the leadership wanting all of our students to be successful.”

“Gut reaction—I don’t think that’s going to happen,” says Dugger. She points to the different populations, the immensity of a combined system, and the city’s fine art system. “I just don’t see it happening in the near future, or even in the distant future.”

Galvin, however, is willing to consider the idea. “I am open for conversation and discussion for any topic that could possibly have a benefit for our division,” Galvin says. “I don’t know whether or not it would be beneficial to us. But I don’t know that it would be harmful to us either.”

Click here for the full study or to send your comments to the city School Board and superintendent.

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