SHERBURNE – Though it’s early in the budgeting season for school districts, members of the Sherburne-Earlville Central School District Board of Education proved there’s no time like the present to begin discussing ways to cut costs for next year.

Led by a suggestion from Patrick Dunshee, the board spent about 40 minutes discussing whether or not to fill a middle school assistant principal’s position. The position could become vacant if the current administrator were to be selected to fill the recently vacated principal’s post.

That position was left open on Sept. 8, the day before school began.

The district is currently in the processing of interviewing 20 candidates for principal. Middle School Assistant Principal Jolene Emhof has been filling in.

At budget setting time last May, the district saved just over $241,000 for the 2009-2010 school year in faculty cuts, or about 3 percent of the current $27.8 million budget, according to Assistant Superintendent Thomas Strain. Four teaching positions were eliminated.

With 300 fewer students in the district since 1999 and the ratios of administrator to student and administrator to teacher continuing to drop, Dunshee said the board should consider restructuring, sharing duties and doing the same amount of work with less people.