LEWISTON – School officials are facing a round of layoffs during the coming fiscal year, they told city councilors Wednesday night.

Superintendent Leon Levesque said expected decreases in state aid combined with higher costs will mean a tighter budget than last year when cash reserves helped balance it.

That’s not an option this year, he said.

“We are in the process of doing surgical carving with our personnel,” Levesque said. “We are facing 12 or more layoffs.”

Levesque said the cuts would come at all levels, including teachers, education technicians and clerks.

“I think there could be some service cuts, but we don’t know where,” he said. “My task right now is to deliver a budget that can actually work.”

His words echoed City Administrator Jim Bennett’s, who told city councilors Tuesday that with $1.6 million in projected budget revenue shortfalls in the next fiscal year, the city needed to plan for staff cuts.

Bennett explained his numbers again Wednesday to the School Committee. He predicted the poor economy statewide would mean $489,220 in lost revenue.

The city also faces a 10 percent cut in revenue sharing called for in the proposed state budget, and a ballot issue this November to halve the excise tax. Altogether, the city could face $1.6 million in cuts in fiscal year 2009-10.

“There will be no other way to make those cuts other than in personnel,” Bennett said. He said he would present his proposed budget to city councilors on Tuesday.

Levesque said he didn’t expect to have solid forecasts for state funding until February or March, and those figures would determine his budget.

But he could make some guesses. A 10 percent increase in Lewiston’s property value will mean less state aid.

“The state just figures that we have more money; we can support more education on our own,” he said. A reduction in student enrollment also would decrease state aid.

There are bright spots for the budget – school lunch funding could increase and there could be money for schools in a federal stimulus package.

“But we can’t count on that, at this point,” Levesque said.

Voters will have to approve the budget in the spring. A referendum is tentatively scheduled for May, Levesque said.