Utah's school year might soon shrink by five days.

An education budget committee recommended Thursday that if the state has to significantly cut education dollars for next school year, districts be allowed to make up the difference by slashing days. Each day cut would save about $12.5 million.

The committee voted to leave the ultimate decision up to districts, which could face some obstacles in eliminating days, such as employee contracts. State Superintendent Patti Harrington, however, said she believes cutting days could be possible.

In all, the committee recommended cutting nearly $445 million -- about 17.6 percent -- from education. The Utah State Office of Education would face nearly a 24 percent cut. Once revenue estimates come out Tuesday, lawmakers will decide where to make actual, final cuts.

Harrington said the recommended cuts would be a "huge and devastating loss for districts."

Rep. Kevin Garn, R-Layton, said it would mean dramatic changes for schools.

"We're going to have a bigger class size, we're going to have fewer days of instruction, we're going to have fewer resources for kids and less money for teachers to make a living," Garn said.

Harrington, however, said she was glad lawmakers tried to reduce the impact on children as much as possible.

Lawmakers recommended cutting most of the dollars from money the state now gives districts to help them pay for employee Social Security and retirement costs. That doesn't mean districts will reduce Social Security or retirement payments. It means they will have to find that money elsewhere in their budgets, essentially giving districts some of the flexibility they desired.

At the same time, however, districts will not be allowed to cut certain other programs -- such as extra days for special education teachers, a foreign language initiative, and K-3 reading improvement -- beyond cuts made by lawmakers.

"It's going to be tough," said Steven Peterson with the Utah School Boards Association and Utah School Superintendents Association.

Susan Kuziak, with the Utah Education Association, said those programs "particularly those just initiated, continue to be protected by those that created them."

Some lawmakers also bristled at the idea of making some of those programs untouchable.

"I don't think it serves our school districts to tie them to these programs," said Rep. Lorie Fowlke, R-Orem. "Some school districts may have more need for these programs than other districts."

Rep. Merlynn Newbold, R-South Jordan, said the idea behind cutting most of the money from Social Security and retirement was to more evenly distribute the pain, because districts receive that money proportionately, as opposed to money for some of the other programs.

Lawmakers did, however, recommend their own cuts to many of those programs. They recommended cutting two-thirds of state funding for library books and electronic resources. They also recommended eliminating some of the money given to special education teachers for teaching extra days, eliminating state funding that supplements Head Start programs, and cutting some state money for a year-round math and science program.

Everyone is hoping lawmakers will be able to find money elsewhere to help education. Newbold said it's still possible lawmakers might dip into the state's Rainy Day Fund or $100 million that was set aside for education last year to help alleviate cuts.

Rep. Brad Last, R-St. George, said he thinks lawmakers will look long and hard at finding ways to fill in the budget holes. Some are also hopeful the state will be able to use money from a federal stimulus package to ease the pain.

If lawmakers are able to find money to reduce cuts to education, that money will first go back into Social Security and retirement dollars for districts and then will go toward restoring a writing test now given to all sixth- and ninth-graders that would otherwise be eliminated.