By Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM, Ore. — The head of Salem-Keizer Public Schools spent nearly a year painstakingly holding meetings and restructuring staffing plans to close a $23 million budget deficit for the next school year.
By early February, Superintendent Andrea Castañeda shared the plans publicly with staff and media, describing it at a news conference as a “proactive measure for us, because we actually are in pretty solid financial condition, but we think it is important to get ahead of the pressures that are coming.”…