Baltimore school officials said last night that the system will lay off 396 temporary employees this week and that more drastic cost cutting could be on the way, including reductions of permanent staff in the next month.

Chief Operating Officer Mark Smolarz said last night at a school finance committee meeting that the system is projected to run a $15 million to $20 million deficit this year if no action is taken to stem the spending.

Under consideration, he said, is laying off permanent staff or asking the unions that represent school employees to accept pay cuts or furloughs.

Tonight, the full school board is expected to hear in more detail about the layoffs and discuss the budget crisis.

Employees who are being laid off began getting the news yesterday; for most, it came without warning. Many of those losing their jobs are earning low salaries but perform tasks that principals say are important to schools. Although called temporary, many of the staff have been working for years as secretaries, teacher aides, custodians, librarians or paid parent volunteers. They are often paid out of a principal's discretionary money.

At Roland Park Elementary/ Middle School, the principal pays a temporary employee to run the school's well-regarded writing program. Other schools have used the money to hire parents on welfare to help with school discipline and work on improving parent involvement in their schools.

Sharlette Jones-Carnegie, principal of Cherry Hill Elementary School, was preparing to tell two classroom aides yesterday they were not to report to work today.

"These are people who cannot afford to lose a job," she said. "As it is, they don't make a lot of money. They do not receive any benefits. ... It is just devastating."

Roland Park's principal, Mariale Hardiman, said she will lose several positions but has managed to avoid losing two librarians, which would have meant closing the school's library, and a kindergarten aide. All were slated to be laid off.

Jones-Carnegie said the hours of her four custodians at Cherry Hill Elementary were being cut from eight to 3 1/2 and shifted to later in the day. The result, she said, is that she or an assistant principal will have to arrive at 7 a.m. to open school and be available to accept deliveries.

Schools Chief Carmen V. Russo said last night that she was notifying "some of our temps that we will no longer be requiring their services. ... This is always very difficult."

The school system estimates it will save $2.5 million to $3 million by eliminating the temporary jobs, although an exact number will not be available until later in the week. These layoffs are likely to be followed, Russo said, by an evaluation of the consulting services and administrative staff at the system's North Avenue headquarters.

Russo will meet with officials from some of the five unions representing workers in the school system today to begin talking about further reductions, and the school board is expected to vote in the next week on more cost-cutting measures.

Several board members said they were annoyed that they have not been able to get key information from administrators about the district's work force.

"We are tired of not having the numbers. There are some pretty unhappy people here at this point," said C. William Struever, a board member.

Board member Sam Stringfield has been asking for information that would indicate whether the administrative staff has grown or shrunk under Russo. So far, he said, he has not been able to get that data.

The school system finds itself in a budget crunch, despite a 13 percent decrease in enrollment in the past several years and an increase in revenues. Russo attributed part of the spending increases to 5 percent raises given to teachers two years in a row. Reducing class size has also been expensive, she said.

But money has also been spent on Russo administration initiatives, including the hiring of 288 academic coaches to help train and assist classroom teachers. The academic coaches cost the system about $3 million.

Before the system laid off the temporary workers, Smolarz said, the school system began freezing certain expenditures, including hiring and travel.

In addition, principals were told they must have approval of a supervisor for any expenditure up to $500. Spending more than that must be approved by one of the system's three top administrators, an action that Smolarz said had effected immediate reductions.

As a result, principals have begun to deal between their buildings to avoid delays in acquiring what they need.

"Schools are doing bartering," Smolarz said, "trading floor wax for textbooks or paper."