OTTAWA — Ottawa school superintendent Dean Katt said he hopes that legislators will honestly consider Gov. Mark Parkinson’s recommendation to raise a temporary sales tax to cover the state’s budget gap rather than blindly sticking to the no-new-taxes stance. Without more revenue, public schools will have to make steep cuts in teachers and classroom instruction, he said. If legislators insist on not raising taxes, Katt asks that they at least give school districts some guidance where to make cuts and that they do so early enough for school administrators to plan teacher cuts for next year.
