A week after laying out plans to cut 1,500 jobs from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools next year, Superintendent Peter Gorman said pay cuts and furloughs don't provide good options for saving jobs.

Last year CMS officials asked the state legislature to grant permission for local furloughs, in hopes that everyone could give up a little pay to avert layoffs. But the bill granting that permission, which passed last summer, attached too many strings to be practical, Gorman said Tuesday.

And he said cutting pay would not only undermine morale but create the possibility of thousands of appeals hearings, because a pay cut is legally defined as a demotion for educators.

Gorman noted that pay has been frozen for two years, despite a state pay scale that calls for educators to get raises with each year of experience. Meanwhile, employees have picked up more of the tab for benefits. Top administrators also have given up their performance bonuses for the last two years.

The message, Gorman said, is "do more with less and get paid less."

"People who say we have not done any (pay) cut, that's just not accurate," he said.

CMS superintendents traditionally present a budget plan in April. Gorman laid out his draft of $100 million in cuts last week, and wants the school board to vote next Tuesday on cuts to Bright Beginnings prekindergarten, new school hours that save money on busing, and a reduction in the number of additional teachers assigned to help teach children of poverty.

Tuesday, Gorman said he's still not ready to release details, such as how many of the 1,516 jobs he plans to cut are teachers and how he'll shrink his administrative staff. He said he'll give the board a breakdown of the job categories he plans to cut at next week's meeting.

Here's what Gorman had to say about the plan and some questions it has raised. He has said the plan could change if the outlook for state, county and federal cuts changes.

Administration

Gorman said his plan would reduce administration by 7 percent, similar to cuts each of the last two years. That includes 6.5 positions at the director level or higher, jobs that tend to pull the highest salaries.

He declined to give more details, saying that if he described the categories he would be identifying individuals who are likely to lose their jobs.

Teachers

Based on his brief description of proposed cuts last week, Gorman appears poised to cut about 600 teachers. However, he declined to give a tally, saying that will be part of next week's discussion.

He said he will keep bringing in recruits from Teach For America, a national program that recruits top college graduates who didn't major in education. CMS pays those recruits the same as any other new teacher, $34,386 for someone with a bachelor's degree and no experience. They commit to spending two years in high-poverty urban schools. Some stay longer, and some have been laid off for weak performance.

Critics say Gorman is bringing in lower-paid rookies who won't stay, even as he's laying off experienced teachers. But Gorman says CMS' partnership with Teach For America is part of his strategy for getting effective teachers into challenging schools. He says the group is recruiting teachers who can handle math, science and special education, the hardest jobs to fill.

Furloughs

Among the state's restrictions on furloughs, which force employees to take time off without pay: A local school district can't furlough anyone making less than $32,000 a year and can't impose furloughs if anyone is getting bonuses.

While top administrators have sacrificed their bonuses, hundreds of teachers and principals qualify for performance bonuses under a pilot performance-pay effort. Those bonuses come from a mix of federal and county money, and Gorman said he's not willing to eliminate them.

Gorman's bonus

Gorman faces a particularly thorny dilemma this year: His plan for converting the entire district to performance pay in 2013 calls for him to go first, starting with the current school year.

Gorman's current contract allows a performance bonus of up to 10 percent of his base pay, which is just over $267,000 a year. If he takes a performance bonus this fall, he'll almost certainly be skewered for doing so while laying off teachers.

If he doesn't, however, he'll confirm what many already fear about a widespread performance-pay effort: That pay will disappear when money gets tight.

Gorman said he and the board haven't begun discussing how to revise his contract to reflect the new focus on performance pay.