December 3, 2004

Important ESUHSD budget meetings: Dec. 6 - 7

By Bea Baechle
Editor

Where’s the beef? The first East Side Union High School District Budget Task Force meeting laid the foundation for future meetings, covering the formation of the task force, its process, and timeline of the task force’s meetings in the coming months—with no discussion of the actual budget numbers.

Manuel Herrera, ESUHSD board member, moderated the first meeting of the Budget Task Force.

The first interim report of the ESUSHD Budget Task Force was distributed at the end of the lengthy 2.5-hour meeting held at Evergreen Valley High School on Nov. 29 in preparation for the next meetings to be held Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 6 and 7.

Dec. 6 work session
The Budget Task Force work session will be an in-depth, four-hour session aimed at thoroughly examining the budget numbers and getting the board, the administration and the community on the same page. The Task Force will discuss the projected revenues, expenses and anticipated shortfalls of next year’s budget.

The Monday, Dec. 6, work session will be held at Santa Teresa High School, 6150 Snell Ave., from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Dec. 7 summary report

For those interested in a broader overview, the Budget Task Force will follow up the work session by summarizing the findings from the Dec. 6 meeting to allow more members of the community to become involved.

The Tuesday, Dec. 7 meeting will be held at Yerba Buena High School, 1855 Lucretia Ave., from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Task force members
The lightly attended Nov. 29 meeting, with a balance of parents and district employees, introduced the initial members of the ESUHSD Budget Task Force, including: Superinten-dent Esperanza Zendejas and her entire cabinet; board members Manuel Herrera and Craig Mann; Don McKell, president of the East Side Union Teachers Assoc. (ESTA); Filiberto Zamora, president of the California School Employees Association (CSEA); and Elena Sanchez, second vice president of CSEA.

Frank Biehl, president of Evergreen Valley’s site council, suggested that the Budget Task Force should also include parent and student representatives. He suggested extending an invitation to a representative from each school’s site council.

Getting people involved
Biehl attributed the poor turnout to this initial meeting to the fact that most community members will not attend a meeting until they are presented with some clear scenarios that will directly impact them. Without specific numbers or suggestions of specific cuts, they will not be motivated to participate.

He also suggested invited representatives from various ethnic organizations.

ESTA’s McKell agreed that from a district staff perspective, more employees would turn up at meetings if they knew ahead of time which programs specific to their employment were being discussed as possible cuts.

Frank Biehl, president of the Evergreen Valley High School site council, suggested that the administration present specific scenarios of potential budget cuts to get more people to the meetings. He also suggested student, parent and ethnic organizations be invited to join the task force.

Zendejas commented that her board has been diligently looking at possible scenarios, but given the sharp criticism she’s received in the past for not obtaining feedback first before plunging ahead on important issues like librarian and counselor layoff notices, she would prefer to see what the Budget Task Force comes up first. However, if the board instructed Zendejas and her cabinet to come up with various budget-cutting scenarios, they would.

Alberto Verduzco from Foothill Intermediate School asked if all documents and tapes of the recorded meeting could be copied and sent to all the school’s libraries to further disseminate the information.

Ralph Giannini, a social studies and English teacher from Silver Creek, presented his concerns about low morale and the likelihood of losing good teachers who may fear a layoff and jump to an opening at another district.

Terre Barbella, an art teacher from Andrew Hill High School, asked what the district was doing to encourage teachers who might be considering retirement to make those decisions sooner rather than later to reduce the number of layoff notices that may need to be sent by March 15, 2005 to meet statutory noticing requirements.

After the meeting, she also suggested getting district employees involved in grant writing by offering them a small percentage of the grant received, a typical incentive for most grant writers.

Everyone in attendance seemed eager to roll up their sleeves and begin the hard job of reworking the 2004-2005 district budget for the rest of the year—at a time when the board would normally begin looking at next year’s budget.

The impact of losing Measure K, a proposed parcel tax that would have brought about $5.8 million to the district for the next six years, will become painfully apparent at these upcoming meetings Dec. 6 and 7.

Getting up to speed
For a copy of the materials dispersed at the Nov. 29 meeting, including the interim budget report prepared Oct. 31, go the district Web site at www.esuhsd.org.

If you are interested in participating in the Task Force meetings or would like information about the upcoming meetings sent to you, read the paragraphs about the Budget Task Force Meetings on the district’s home page, click on the appropriate spot, and send the form that pops up to the Superintendent’s office.

A special meeting for just CSEA meetings will also be held on Dec. 11, 9 a.m to noon, at the Education Center Board Room, 830 N. Capital Ave.

Watch the Evergreen Times for future meeting details, including:

- Presentations by Stakeholders

- January 2005

- Exploring Scenarios - February 2005

- Forwarding Recommendations to the Board - March/April, 2005

- Report to the Board - May 1, 2005