MORGAN HILL
– Once again, the word is
”
cut
”
when it comes to preparing a budget for next year for the Morgan
Hill School District.
MORGAN HILL – Once again, the word is “cut” when it comes to preparing a budget for next year for the Morgan Hill School District.
Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini, who heads the business services department, told a gathering of Home and School Club presidents and district principals Friday: “We will be cutting the budget.”
How much the district will have to cut from the 2004-05 budget will, in a large part, be determined by the state Legislature and voters on March 2 who are asked to approved Prop. 57, which authorizes the state to sell $15 billion in bonds to help balance the budget. Another proposition, Prop. 55, would allow the state to sell $12.3 billion in bonds to build and repair public schools and colleges.
The district has cut $6.1 million in order to balance costs and revenue. The current fiscal year budget is approximately $70 million.
The actual budgeting process will begin in February, Tognazzini said last week, but she has been meeting with representatives of the teachers’ union and the classified employees’ union to see where money is being spent.
“We are going over, line by line, every program in the general fund,” she said. “Then we’ll be going over the other funds.
“We’ll be giving it the most in depth look, so everyone gets to see and ask questions. As a fiscal person, I can answer questions without any bias about how important anything, any program, is. Then, I expect each group will make some kind of recommendation.”
The district is facing the opening of a second high school, Sobrato High, in August, without a clear idea of the operating costs for the school.
Principal Rich Knapp has said, “the money will follow the students,” meaning the state funds that are computed by average daily attendance, because the ninth-grade students will be moving from the middle schools to the two high schools.
The district has all but depleted its reserves, which the state gave permission for districts to do in light of the state budget cuts, from the required 3 percent of the general fund to 1.7 percent. The report recommends the district replace its reserves to the required level.
Also, the district does not have enough money in the deferred maintenance account to take advantage of the state’s matching fund program for deferred maintenance.
The district, like others in the state, is also felt the pinch of last year’s midyear state budget cuts.
But Tognazzini is cautiously optimistic about the proposal for this year. She said that although the state budget proposal would be a better plan for schools than the educational community expected, if it passes, it still will not help the district to the extent that no cuts are necessary.
