School District Deficit Is Growing

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

Budget woes continue to plague the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District as the pro-jected deficit swells. Teachers and classified employees ranging from custodians to cafeteria workers packed the district office at the Sept. 17 board of education to protest potential plans for layoffs in the spring and challenge the district’s un-audited actual financial report findings.
Lisa Bartoli, a fourth grade teacher at Franklin Elementary, called the prospect of pay cuts and the loss of medical benefits unacceptable. “My confidence is shaken,” she told the board of education. “We work hard every day to provide for students [you need to] put a face not just on me but on all of my colleagues.”
“For ten years we’ve walked hand in hand with this community and been partners with you to build what we think is an exemplary school district,” Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers Association president Harry Keily told the board. “I recall when we had less than $1 million in reserve. Now that exceeds $29 million. That’s an extraordinary amount for a district of this size,” he said, expressing frustration that the district is unwilling to tap that reserve to prevent layoffs and pay cuts but that the unrestricted reserve is used to pay for independent contractors and consultants.
Keily accused the district of reducing the amount of money spent in the classroom to just 57 percent of each dollar, down, he said, by six percent from the previous year. He criticized the district for “rejecting out of hand” negotiations in July, and blasted the board for approving the use of unrestricted funds for outside contractors and consultants.
“You should not be passing items for independent contractors. You keep approving them and you’ll be laying off teachers in the spring. We expect to be treated with dignity and respect in difficult times.”
Chancy Jones, a security officer at John Adams Middle School, also had harsh words for the board. “Classified employees [are going to be] asked to take a two percent pay cut. We need you to keep in mind that what we do for you in 104 percent and we expect the same from you,” she said.
“If any of you want to walk in any of our shoes—dozens of classified [personnel] and teachers, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers, security. We work long hours for low wages. Benefits keep us in our jobs. I urge you to keep your trained and expert staff here.”
The district’s chief financial officer Jan Maez had a different perspective on the perceived $29 million reserve, describing the number as an anomaly generated by a variety of one-time only changes, ranging from state budgeting to federal stimulus money.
“If we continue spending [at the current rate] there will be no reserves by the middle of 2010-11,” she said. “The size of our problem is $12.5 million,” Maez said. “The deficit is increasing steadily.”
“Clearly no organization or family can spend more than it takes in,” Keily replied. “If what we’re hearing is accurate, and we don’t dispute that, why hasn’t the district placed a moratorium on outside contracts and consultants?” He asked. “$20 thousand here, $20 thousand there, the next thing you know is you’ve spent millions. That may be justified in good times, but not now.”
“If, in fact, we’re looking at layoffs in the spring that will be a lot of work. It costs money,” Keily warned. He proposed that the district develop instead an “irrevocable” early retirement plan to “take some stress off of the system. We believe there are really good arguments that it should be explored now.”
Maez was less sanguine, and warned that there are no easy solutions to the budget crisis and that more cuts will be inevitable. However, she reported that the steady, district-wide decline in students has leveled out, possibly in part due to an increase in the number of permits available to out-of-district students, including the children of both cities employees.
The board voted to approve the financial report but postponed voting on anther controversial issue, a proposal to restructure the district’s advisory committee structure, limiting the number of committee members and imposing term limits. The proposal, which generated considerable public outcry, especially amongst members of the Special Education DAC, with some speakers accusing district superintendent Tim Cuneo of attempting to “take control of the process,” was moved to the Oct. 1 meeting, in Malibu.