Where One School in the Bronx Is Planning to Make Budget Cuts Like many other principals across the city, Edward Tom has developed something of a nervous habit. Each morning, when he switches on his computer at the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, he checks to make sure his school has the same amount of money it had the night before. Mr. Tom is not a principal one would normally suspect of anxiety. Eighty-three percent of the students in the senior class at his small South Bronx high school graduated this spring, well above the 52 percent borough average. More than three-quarters of them enrolled in four-year colleges, winning $3 million in scholarships. "These are the students people said couldn't learn," Mr. Tom, who has been principal since the school opened in 2005, said proudly. But budget cuts are coming, even if it is too soon to say exactly when and how much. Most city agencies have been asked to submit plans for cost savings; the Department of Education has been asked to prepare for a 1.5 percent midyear cut and a 4 percent cut for next autumn's entering class. While it is not known how much individual schools will be asked to shave, principals like Mr. Tom are preparing for the worst. It is part of their role, since 2007, of managing a large portion of their own operating budgets. Mr. Tom agreed to discuss his budget in detail to illustrate what the cuts could mean to a school that seems an embodiment of the hopes of the mayor and chancellor for the system. His description underscores the vulnerability of years of progress to the budget ax, the uncertainty of much year-to-year financing, and growing frustration about a shared sense in many schools that hard-won gains could be lost. The school is starting out in better financial shape than are many others. Part business manager, part publicist for his vision of a college preparatory public school for some of the city's most disadvantaged students, Mr. Tom, a former buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue, built a budget that goes well beyond his city and state allotments, stringing together federal grants, private donations and grants from discretionary funds of local officials. He lobbied the city to pay for his sports coaches, and applied for special federal funds for a library. A federal magnet grant of $250,000 over each of the last three years helped save staff from losing jobs in the last three rounds of cuts: a 4.9 percent cut in June, a 1 percent cut last December, and a 1.75 percent cut last January. Education officials said Thursday that the budget plan submitted to City Hall attempts as much as possible to absorb the requested 1.5 percent midyear cut outside of the operating budgets controlled by principals. But if Mr. Tom's 460-student school bears the brunt of the cut, Mr. Tom guesses it will lose about $43,000. Next year could be harder. The end of the federal grant means as much as a $250,000 shortfall. An additional 4 percent cut would slice about $115,000. In the worst case, Mr. Tom is projecting a $400,000 reduction - or 12 percent - from his $3.3 million budget. The first thing to go would be professional development for teachers, he said. Mr. Tom has asked his teaching staff of 24 to play multiple roles, as is common at many small schools. An English teacher leads an art class. The English as a Second Language teacher also works as a Japanese and guitar instructor. In exchange, he has offered them some morale-boosting perks and professional support: twice-yearly staff retreats ($20,000); professional consultants for training ($33,000); annual trips to a national curriculum conference for senior staff ($13,000); biannual staff awards and occasional catered food. The retreats and conferences will be gone, and the rest of the spending will be trimmed to a fraction (to probably under $10,000). The next most vulnerable budget category is extra services for students. A section of the Kaplan SAT prep course provided free to all students would most likely be cut ($12,000), along with about half his $107,000 in supply funds, down to basics like paper and dry-erase markers, and limits on color printing and other luxuries. His $95,000 spending on textbooks will be sliced by $50,000 (he has been hoarding extra books in expectation of cuts). Reductions in the after-school program ($40,000) are particularly painful to contemplate, he said. Varsity athletics and, he hopes, drama would be safe, but after-school tutoring will likely be lost, as well as yearbook, rock band and guitar - though they could perhaps refashioned into credit-bearing classes during the school day. Dreams of a full school band or equipment like new backboards for the schools" four netless basketball hoops will remain dreams ($15,000). Spending on the school's new library, opening in January ($53,000), will approach zero. As a last resort, there would be personnel cuts. The school has five aides; one, perhaps an information technology specialist who maintains the school's computers and other equipment, may have to go ($28,000). Among the teaching staff, there is a math teacher with a more flexible schedule who provides intensive help to special and regular education students. Cutting that position ($62,000) in a worst-case situation would bring him nearly to the $400,000 total. Mr. Tom's fear is an austerity budget: offering instruction and some special services, but not much else. "Unfortunately, all of the things that we tried to institute through the small schools initiative seem to be going by the wayside because of budget cuts," Mr. Tom said. And all of the things that we invested in to create this small-school culture, of a tightknit team, where we really acknowledge your contributions, has to go. And it's all down to the bare bones.