Imagine deciding how much your family can afford to spend this month without having a clear picture of your income.

Sound crazy? That’s just what local school districts are doing as they finalize budgets for the 2009-2010 school year.

“At this point you just have to say, ‘here’s our plan,’” said Mark Geyer, superintendent of the Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District.

That’s because districts are required by law to send their fiscal plan to the county by June 30. Yet it remains anyone’s guess what funding they’ll actually get from the state, as the governor and legislature are still hashing the details.

In the interim, schools have to rely on the governor’s most recent plan, which slashes billions from K-12 education.

So local districts are paring already reduced pots of money further, while gearing up for even more cutbacks. Some are even talking about eliminating bus services for regular-education students, if it comes to that.

The Roseville Joint Union High School District’s proposed 2009-2010 budget includes $4 million in cuts. In addition to slashing 24 full-time certificated positions, it includes cuts to the Academic Decathlon program, special education and individual school budgets.

And it’s slated to get even worse next year, with $1 million in additional cuts needed to keep the district afloat, said Gary Stevens, the district’s curriculum chief.

“We’re just going to have to take an honest assessment,” Stevens said of district programs.

In Dry Creek, which serves portions of Roseville and Antelope, officials are faced with cutting an additional $3.5 million beyond cuts already approved this year, which included 29 teacher layoffs.

To address it, officials have reached an agreement with the teachers’ union to freeze members’ annual step raises, which could save $700,000 this year. It’s the first in the region to take such a step, officials said.

Administrators have already frozen their salaries, and they’ve joined teachers in taking three furlough days next year.

Students will see some effects in the classroom, as new textbook adoptions are delayed and certain programs cut.

“We just didn’t want to lay off any more people,” Geyer said.

In the Roseville City School District about $4 million must be made up over the next two years. That’s about $450 per student, said Julie Olson, the district’s budget chief.

Although federal stimulus funds will help, it’s still not enough and it won’t last beyond next year.

The district has already cut all of its counselors. To save nearly $1 million, most district employees will take a three-day furlough. But more painful cuts will likely be made next year, she said.

In the Eureka Union School District, which serves east Roseville and Granite Bay, the target is more than $3 million in cuts over two years.

Officials already planned for big cuts, but are faced with slashing about $300,000-$500,000 more, said Tim McCarty, Eureka’s superintendent. That meant doing away with summer school this year.

To help ease the crunch, officials will spend out of the district’s reserve fund, he said.

“We had a historically high reserve based on really wise decisions,” he said. “Since this is a historically poor funding cycle, the board approved the recommendation to draw down on the reserve to ease our budget-cutting over a two-year time period.”