Roanoke schools Superintendent Rita Bishop said funding is going to be "bare bones" in the city's schools next fiscal year.

The division is looking to close a multimillion-dollar shortfall for the second straight year, and everything -- from staff reductions to early retirement incentives and furloughs -- is on the table at this point in the budget process.

"We are eight weeks and a couple of meetings away from voting on a budget with massive job-at-risk decisions," school board Chairman David Carson said.

The school board made sweeping cuts last year by closing two schools, re-purposing two more, outsourcing transportation, instituting a wage freeze and reducing staff by 88 positions. This year the target may be the division's beefiest expense category: personnel.

The school board held a daylong retreat at Roanoke's Higher Education Center on Friday and one item on the agenda was the division's dire financial situation. Curt Baker, the division's deputy superintendent, presented an array of potential savings to close a projected $16 million gap over the next 16 months.

Baker presented a model that would reduce staffing to Standards of Quality minimums. The state-mandated standards are based on enrollment. The city may potentially save $8.7 million by staffing based on the minimum standards and eliminating about 200 full-time positions, from support staff to principals. That figure includes about 140 teachers. The school division presently has 2,048 full-time employees, including 1,054 teachers.

"Realize this is not a fait accompli," Bishop said.

No decisions were made at Friday's meeting. The school board will hold a public hearing on the budget Feb. 9 and adopt a budget a month later.

School board member Jason Bingham said the school system needs additional revenue, in the form of a local tax increase, which falls under the purview of the Roanoke City Council. He said the school division cannot make enough cuts to close the $16 million gap without sacrificing progress, and he knows the city is hard-pressed to appropriate additional funds to schools without raising taxes.

Another school board member, Suzanne Moore, said she would like to see state legislators raise taxes on gasoline, alcohol and tobacco, and apply that revenue to education.

Baker discussed an early retirement incentive proposal that includes a provision for takers to receive a one-time payment of 25 percent of this fiscal year's base pay, capped at $20,000. He said 118 employees will be eligible for early retirement by July 1. The estimated savings is between $500,000 and $1.5 million depending on how many employees opt for it. There is another advantage to potential early retirees because this is the last year employees retiring early will be eligible to lock in the division's subsidized insurance rate.

In another cost-saving move, Bishop said she plans to proceed with steps to revamp high school scheduling, a plan she said can save more than $2 million. Courses with fewer than 15 students enrolled may be eliminated and teacher loads may be increased to 130 students each. To address course eliminations, Bishop said she will work with Virginia Western Community College to establish dual enrollment opportunities.

Baker identified several other areas of savings Friday:

n Abandoning class size reduction funds from the state: $1.4 million.

n Splitting the federal stimulus dollars for special education over the next two fiscal years: $1.7 million.

n Tightening control of employment contracts, substitute pay and extra pay: more than $1 million.

School officials presented additional smaller cuts totaling $3.1 million, which include continuing the wage freeze, cuts to central administration, closing the CITY School program, eliminating elementary Spanish and, worst-case scenario, closing one or more schools.

"I can cut a program here and whack Spanish there, but in the end, it is about jobs," Bishop said.

Closing schools was not received well by the board, especially after last year's unpopular closing of Raleigh Court Elementary and William Ruffner Middle schools. But Baker wanted the school board to see the fiscal impact.

"The closure of a school, by and large, will reduce costs by $800,000," he said. "If we are in trouble, it is a big-ticket item."

Carson asked Baker to estimate the potential savings of eight furlough days on the last Friday of each month of school except December. Bishop adamantly disagreed with the concept, saying urban schoolchildren lose ground any time school is out, even on the weekends.