Six months after the Francis Howell Board of Education was prepared to cut as many as 65 teaching positions, the district is now hiring teachers.

The board on Thursday agreed to add three elementary school teaching positions because enrollment is higher than anticipated at some schools. The district began the 2011-12 school year on Aug. 8.

Adding two kindergarten teachers and a fourth-grade teacher will help reduce class sizes, said Steve Griggs, the district's chief human resources officer.

In a memorandum to the board, Griggs recommended adding a kindergarten teacher at Henderson and Central elementary schools and a fourth-grade teacher at Daniel Boone Elementary School.

The average kindergarten class sizes are now 23 students at Henderson, 25 at Central and 29 at Daniel Boone.

Griggs said the staffing plan the board adopted in February was conservative but left little margin to absorb unexpected enrollment. The board agreed then to cut as many as 95 positions to help reduce a possible budget deficit for this school year.

At the time, administrators said more staffing could be requested beyond eight contingency positions to keep class sizes down. Griggs said there is only 1.4 contingency positions left.

An early retirement plan and attrition reduced the number of teachers who were actually laid off as a result of budget cuts.

In all, 59 teachers agreed to retire by April, and the board announced plans that month to lay off 13 teachers by July1, when the new fiscal year began. With the retirements and normal attrition in the spring, some teachers were recalled to open positions for which they were certified to teach.

As of last week, there were only two instructional positions — a teacher and support person — who were actually laid off, Griggs said.

Even though the district's overall enrollment continues to drop, enrollment in some grade-level classes at several schools is on the rise.

Preliminary enrollment figures show the district with 17,244 students this year, a drop of 46 from last year. Those numbers could change when final counts are sent to the state in September.

Still, personnel cuts may be a consideration in future budgets because the district's financial position could be precarious in coming years. About 80 percent of the district's budget expense involves personnel.

Five-year financial projections discussed during a work session after the board's regular meeting Thursday paint a picture of flat or declining revenue and rising expenditures.

Kevin Supple, the district's chief financial officer, said even though the preliminary budget for this year shows a $2.45 million surplus, deficits may loom in coming years.

Supple's projections suggest a $3.3 million deficit in the 2012-13 school year, with deficits rising to as much as $14.9 million by the 2015-16 fiscal year. Deficits would eat into the district's fund balances — essentially its savings — to the point that the projections show those balances disappearing by 2016.

The district could see a decline in assessed valuation because of the decline in the housing market, which translates into drops in personal property tax revenues, he said. The St. Charles County Assessor's Office was projecting a 4.4 percent drop as of July 1.

Meanwhile, federal and state funds for buses, the Parents As Teachers program for early childhood education, special education and teacher professional development have been cut, he said.