GILROY
– After a most challenging year and a half of keeping budgets in
the black, Gilroy Unified School District has balanced its books
for 2003-04, $2.8 million dollars in cuts later.
GILROY – After a most challenging year and a half of keeping budgets in the black, Gilroy Unified School District has balanced its books for 2003-04, $2.8 million dollars in cuts later.
School board trustees on Wednesday approved a $66 million spending plan for next school year that will keep the district $935,000 above water. Trustees felt the excess general fund money was enough to justify renegotiating with the Gilroy Teachers Association and ending the impasse over a salary and health benefits dispute.
President Michelle Nelson said the GTA is open to more negotiations with the district, but the 545-member group will not drop the impasse proceedings. Teachers also believe it is the district who needs to make the next move.
“They’re the ones who found money (the $935,000 over and above rainy day reserves),” Nelson said. “We made the last move when we went from (asking for) a 7 percent raise to a 6 percent raise.”
Teachers and the district declared the impasse last week, triggering mediation from the state that will begin some time this summer. If a mediator cannot get the two sides to agree, the state will access GUSD financial records to determine its ability to pay and make a recommendation to trustees.
If the recommendation does not pass muster with teachers, their next option would be to go on strike.
Teachers call the district’s offer of a zero percent raise unacceptable. They also say the district’s plan to make them pay more money out of pocket to meet increases in health insurance costs is a pay cut.
Gilroy teachers will receive the automatic pay increases that are based on years of experience and level of education.
As the state’s budget is currently proposed, GUSD will see no cost-of-living increase when the state makes good on its regular per student funding. The state is also deferring 1.2 percent of the roughly $4,750-per-student payment.
In other words, the state will pay – hopefully – $57 per student to GUSD at a later date. The plan creates a $514,000 cash flow problem for the district next year.
On Wednesday night, trustees unanimously approved a resolution to borrow cash from its capital facilities fund to offset cash flow issues that will arise in other funds next year.
“The Education Code (42603) makes provisions for districts to borrow funds from other funds of the district’s to close the books at the end of the year,” a district document states. “We are projecting a positive cash balance at the end of the fiscal year at this time, however, by adopting the resolution, the administration can quickly act on any cash flow problems …”
Another revenue loss GUSD must absorb stems from the recruiting success at El Portal Leadership Academy. El Portal officials told the district that 160 students, an increase of 90 students, will be enrolled next year at the charter high school. Per-student funding from the state goes directly to the school, so as more students attend El Portal, less money goes to GUSD coffers.
The state gives El Portal a high school per-student funding rate while the district receives a less lucrative unified district rate.
“El Portal gets $700 more than what we would have received for the students,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said.
GUSD shows a $326,000 loss for El Portal in its 2003-04 budget.
None of the revenue loss bodes well for teachers and the district trying to avoid a strike.
For months, district staff has been chiseling at various district programs and services in an effort to spend $2.8 million less from the middle of the 2002-03 school year through 2003-04.
Now that the impasse was declared, a war of words began between the district and the GTA. On Wednesday, Trustee Jaime Rosso was asked by Diaz and school board President Jim Rogers to refrain from questions about the GTA’s pay raise request.
Rosso echoed Diaz’ comments in The Dispatch that questioned why GTA made an 11th-hour pay raise request.
By Friday, Nelson and the GTA were working on a press release refuting accusations they were operating at the last minute. Nelson says the district instructed the GTA to hold off on salary negotiations since there were several contract items that had to be worked out this year.
Nelson said the salary negotiations also got delayed because of an unfair labor practice charge the GTA filed against Gilroy High School. The charge, stemming from an unauthorized increase in workload, has since been resolved.
“We’re going to continue to analyze the budget. We’ve asked for their financial records to show the differences between what they thought they needed and what they actually needed (across various funds),” Nelson said. “In the past, those differences have led to big reserves that could have been used to pay teachers.”
