DEAR EDITOR:
Congratulations, Ms. Linda Piceno, you have caught me in a
mistake. Ms. Walker based part of her rebuttal to Mr. Weiler on my
analysis of the 2001-2002 GUSD budget.
DEAR EDITOR:

Congratulations, Ms. Linda Piceno, you have caught me in a mistake. Ms. Walker based part of her rebuttal to Mr. Weiler on my analysis of the 2001-2002 GUSD budget. It’s been over a year since I did the analysis and I misremembered the 45 percent number as certificated non-teacher.

The correct numbers for 2001-2002 are 55 percent classroom teachers and 45 percent everybody else. The everybody else includes administrators, non-teacher staff, and classified. As I commented at the time, that’s actually not a bad ratio for a government school; the national average is 45 percent teachers to 55 percent overhead.

My apologies, I should have checked my notes. I believe that puts the current score at one misrepresentation for us that, since we admit error, can reasonably be judged a mistake, and a couple of dozen misrepresentations for your side that, since y’all admit nothing, can reasonably be judged, in my opinion, as lies.

Although some particulars of Ms. Walker’s argument were not correct, I think that her fundamental position is sound: that is, that Gilroy Unified School District has plenty of other budget areas to reduce expenditures by 2 percent without impacting classroom teachers. In our opinion, GUSD is using the standard bureaucratic tactic of making cuts in popular, visible parts of the budget “pour encourager les autres”, to encourage increased taxation. I would not call this tactic responsible management of a public trust.

I checked the GUSD 2002-2003 budget and I am afraid I did not get the same breakdown that you did. My focus is different. I am trying to highlight how much of GUSD resources are focused on the fundamental task of mass education. By my count, classroom teachers are 77 percent (not 91 percent) of certificated positions and 50 percent of total positions. Please note that overhead positions have increased 11 percent since last year. Not a good trend.

More importantly, regular education certified salaries for GUSD are $18,653,607, 20 percent of the total budget. Surely a 2.5 percent decrease in the non-essential parts of the budget is better than riffing popular ag department teachers, among others.

Stuart Allen, Gilroy

Submitted Sunday, April 6 to ed****@****ic.com

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