April 22, 2005

Budget Task Force uncovers millions in reductions to projected deficit

By Stephanie Foo
Times Intern

Critical adjustments announced during an April 19 Budget Task Force meeting will reduce East Side Union High School District’s original projected budget deficit for 2005-06 to between $3.5 and $4.5 million from an earlier figure of $9.5 million.

Although several factors impacted the reduction, one of most significant was the plan to add three students to most classrooms in the district.

“Last week the teachers and the administration in the bargaining process agreed to increase class sizes by three students,” said Board President J. Manuel Herrera. “That is an extraordinary agreement … recognition for that goes to staff and bargaining representatives.”

The district could save about $2 to $3.5 million on this decision, but an exact number is still being calculated, because not all classrooms will be affected.

“Adding three students to every classroom would negatively impact student performance,” says Piedmont Hills’ teacher/ ESTA site representative Paul Landshof.

“So we wanted to provide better classroom sizes for students with special needs, like special education and English and math special support classes.” The decision will not affect these classes.

Some teachers are wary about the bargaining decision, but most support it. “The more students they add, the harder it makes it to give individual attention to each student. That’s the biggest thing,” says Piedmont Hills’ teacher Mitch Method.

COLA adjustments
Another $2 million was subtracted from next year’s projected deficit due to Cost of Living Adjustments during the April 11 BTF meeting.

“It was discovered that the $9.5 million [projected deficit] included a cost of living adjustment for the teachers that they were not counting on because their contract had expired, so we went from $9.5 to $7.5 million in adjusting the figures,” said Herrera.

Governor’s change
A change in the governor’s plans may also generate $1.2 million in savings.

“We were informed that the governor has changed his public position on retirement pensions. If he had pursued his plan, it would have cost the district another $1.2 million, so that was plugged into the figures,” says Herrera.

“My understanding is that the governor decided not to pursue a ballot initiative on pensions, but he has not withdrawn the idea on his budget in January,” continued Herrera. “So we’re waiting for the governor’s revised budget, which he issues in May. Until he does … we can only look at it hopefully and say it looks like there’s another 1.2 million.”

Miscellaneous cuts
The last reduction is a list totaling about $1.8 million. It consists of cuts that don’t involve jobs, such as cutting back on the use of copiers, piggybacking on consumables and reducing legal costs. These will be implemented without debate because, according to Herrera, they are widely accepted.

Some committee members questioned the $1.8 million sum, but Herrera insisted that when coupled with raising prices on school à la carte lunch options, the sum would equal at least that amount.

Prioritizing cuts
Other cuts must still be made. To get an idea of community desires, the task force distributed a community poll/prioritization tool among audience members. This listed 18 suggestions for cuts, such as centralizing the telephone switchboard by 71 percent and reducing counselors by 25 percent.

Participants were asked to check the five suggestions they most strongly wanted to preserve and five they wanted to reduce.

“It’s not voting in the traditional sense … the poll is a snapshot … a way for the board to interpret the thoughts of the community,” Herrera said.

Unlike the version presented at the April 11 Budget Task Force meeting, the April 19 poll included specific costs and savings with additional suggestions. Audience members were asked to convey answers with sticker dots on posters hung around the room. There were separate sets of posters for the audience and the Budget Task Force.

Both groups voted similarly. Among the suggestions they most wanted to preserve were librarians, advisers, bookroom clerks and counselors. Most wanted to reduce special assignment teachers, athletics and the Camp Anytown program.

Unhappy with voting process
Many audience members however, were unhappy with the Budget Task Force’s process, and opted out of voting.

Prior to voting, the meeting allowed representatives, who were unaware they would be allowed to lobby their programs, two minutes to state why their program should not be cut. Most testimonies were improvised.

Diane Medina, a career technician at Evergreen Valley High School, represented the career techs. She said she was disturbed about the process and her extemporaneous speech.

“When I passed out the dots, a lot of people abstained because they don’t believe in the process, and I don’t blame them,” she said. “I think that this whole Budget Task Force has been so disorganized and unfair, and I don’t think everyone’s been included in the process … a lot of people’s comments are just brushed off.”

Others also felt that community members and staff were not being heard.

“This was an advisory committee that will submit this garbage to the superintendent, who will do exactly what she planned in the beginning. This has just been a $10,000 exercise. Each Task Force meeting costs about $1,000,” says Wendy Stegman, Andrew Hill teacher/ ESTA site president.

She met with a small group compiled by Herrera to organize the suggestions the week before, but the group’s decisions were not implemented.

“Last week, with the small group, we were here when they designed the voting process and decided how this would go. And [task force manager] Joel Herrera has completely changed it,” she said.

Process inaccurate?
A number of audience members felt the voting process was inaccurate.

“I don’t think I’m in favor of the voting. It’s going to be totally irrelevant…it’s going to be skewed because it’s done by whoever happens to be here tonight,” said one Piedmont Hills parent. “I don’t think it’s going to be balanced. Not all of the parents at PHHS will have their say, because there are only a few of them here. My opinion may be different from others on programs that need to be cut. It’s the same thing with teachers and other classified workers.”

That parent, like many that night, felt misled by board president Herrera’s statements that the district wanted to examine the community’s point of view and previous statements that the Task Force meetings were “an open forum for anyone to participate in.”

The Task Force’s votes are the ones that truly matter, and it’s the board itself that makes the final decision based on the Task Force’s recommendations.

Defends voting process
J. Manuel Herrera countered the accusations of not notifying the public about the voting and presentations.

“That was broadcast throughout the organization. There are always people who show up and say, ‘Don’t know.’ The emphasis is not on the audience, it’s on the participants at the table who have been following the process from the beginning, because there has been complete inconsistency on the attendance of individuals in the audience,” Herrera said.

The voting process, he said, provided relevant information that the district will use. “It doesn’t look like we’re going to get to the point of touching advisers at all.”

Herrera claims that the information also clears the way for many teachers who were not mentioned in the poll to be rescinded as soon as possible. “The folks who remain won’t be affected in terms of their jobs—maybe in their position, but not in terms of their jobs. It looks like we will be able to rescind overwhelmingly the ones who remain.”

If the rescission notices are distributed before April 25, the district will not spend money sending teachers to court to contest their “letters of accusation,” which they received after their layoff notices. Counselor Allan Roberts says that many teachers will also decide next week whether they will move to another district.

“I would implore you to get the notices out as soon as possible because I wouldn’t want to lose some great teachers,” Roberts said.

The April 19 meeting brought the Task Force one step closer to concluding its long and tedious process, which has been widely criticized. During the April 11 meeting, tensions rose in response to the fact that no promised recommendation—or any other real evidence of progress—had surfaced in several meetings.

“The process is too prostrated! Get to the point!” cried one Oak Grove parent. “We don’t know where we’re going.”
Even board member Craig Mann agreed that the process was unnecessarily drawn out. “We need to get done. It’s been going on for far too long,” he said. “It needs to end. We need to move forward.”

Fluctuating numbers
“I think the ever-changing numbers show the basic incompetence of the district to fully understand what anything in the budget is about,” said Julie Pradicho, Evergreen Valley High School librarian.

“They’ve shown the public how in disarray this whole thing is. We have classified [employees] fighting certified and [the] community against the teachers. [While the local media] is highlighting all the faults of the teachers like it’s the teachers’ fault. The students are in the middle! Who’s going to help them?”

Despite misplaced decimal points and inaccurate COLAS, Herrera says that the alterations to the deficit’s amount were unavoidable.

“Fluctuations… they’re inevit-able. You couldn’t have known when we started in November what we know now in late April,” he said.

The LAST Budget Task Force meeting will be held in the ESUHSD board room, 830 N. Capital Ave., on Tuesday, May 3 at 6 p.m.