The Baldwin County Board of Education voted 6-0 Thursday night to eliminate approximately 180 employees from its work force in another cost-cutting effort to cut $14 million from its budget.

Each of the terminated employees was categorized as a classified, probationary employee and served in a support job in categories such as custodial, lunchroom, mechanics, bus driving, nursing and bookkeeping. None of the employees had three years or more service in the school system.

No teachers were laid off in the move.

“The cuts we are making are in order to meet all scheduled demands — we are required by law to balance the budget,” said board member Norm Moore.

“We’ve been told we need to cut the fat out of the system, and everybody wants to point at somebody. We’ve cut the fat and we’ve also cut the raw, red, lean meat out of the system too,” he said. “We’re getting into people very deeply and it hurts.”

The move is just one of many the Board has enacted to try and balance a budget that is due to the state in September. Board members voted Aug. 11 to rescind a 1-cent tax plan that could have recouped much of the money that was lost in previous months in a drop in property tax and ad valorem tax revenues.

Thursday’s vote was part of the first phase of the Board’s Reduction in Force plan that was laid out before the Baldwin County Commission earlier this week. The cuts become effective Sept. 30.

The cuts will not do enough to make up the entire $14 million needed, superintendent Faron Hollinger said.

“The next step will be to look at non-probationary classified positions and to facilitate transfers of some of those individuals into vacant positions,” he said, “and I think the number we are trying to get to in that phase is $5 million.”

Parents and teachers packed Thursday’s meeting, with many making pleas before the Board in support of their children, their children’s teachers or their teaching aides.

“We have questions that should be answered before any staff reductions occur, which will adversely affect our children’s education,” said Laura Sykora, a parent of two students in the school system. “We would like these answered clearly without double-talk or political rhetoric.”

Board member Elmer McDaniel was absent from Thursday’s meeting.