With furlough days and increased class sizes, the Gilroy Unified
School District is grappling with a whirlwind of crippling monetary
shortfalls, deadline pressures, negotiation vollies and tense
teachers.
To offer budget input, click here
With furlough days and increased class sizes, the Gilroy Unified School District is grappling with a whirlwind of crippling monetary shortfalls, deadline pressures, negotiation vollies and tense teachers.
GUSD board trustees entered round two Thursday night in a series of public budget study sessions where they examined possible revenue enhancements in preparation for the “worst case scenario” – a budget shortfall of $7.3 million.
As for the “best case” scenario, that’s not pretty, either.
Contingent on a June 2011 special election where voters may or may not approve a five-year extension of temporary tax measures – which would maintain flat funding from the state guaranteed by voter-approved Proposition 98 – GUSD must still slash $3.3 million in spending.
A survey released Jan. 26 by the Public Policy Institute of California stated most voters would pay higher taxes to spare schools.
However, GUSD superintendent Deborah Flores pointed out schools are still waiting on legislature just to approve the ballot measure.
“Contrary to popular belief, now is the time to begin ‘nickel and diming’ and finding every penny out there,” said Paul Winslow, Christopher High School English teacher and vice president of the Gilroy Teachers Association.
Kirsten Perez, director of Fiscal Services for GUSD, presented options Thursday to the board and public for surviving either of the ominous scenarios.
Prior to this, Perez and Flores confirmed Wednesday two strategies are imminent: The implementation of furlough days, and the upping of class sizes.
“Those are the biggest items,” said Flores. “Without those, we couldn’t meet our budget.”
Other potential moves include across-the-board salary reductions, keeping the Advanced Path program cost-neutral, eliminating additional staffing at middle schools, reducing independent study programs, conserving energy, implementing a spending freeze and cutting down even more on home-to-school transportation.
“We’re about as consolidated as we can be right now,” said Flores, who pointed out bus routes were already cut last year. “A lot of buses aren’t arriving to school on time.”
In terms up scraping up revenue, Flores said the district is looking at sweeping funds from adult education, as “anything beyond K-12 education has to be examined.”
They will also continue to emphasize attendance.
For every day a student attends school, Perez explained, it generates $37 in revenue funding for the district.
“There is no state funding for ‘excused absences,’ ” she wrote in a public budget Q&A posted on the district’s website. “If every student attended one more day of school, the district would gain approximately $400,000 in additional revenues.”
Flores said increasing fees for using GUSD facilities is also in the mix, since custodians working overtime cost the district money.
Another wrench in the wheel is timing. Since the June special election is after the statutory March 15 deadline for notifying staff of layoffs, fiscal planning for the 2011-12 school year is like throwing darts blindfolded.
Winslow said it’s this kind of wafting uncertainty that’s taking a major toll in the education sector.
He said teachers are starting to succumb to stresses of increasing class sizes, sliding wages, rising health and welfare costs, plus higher demands from new programs and teaching techniques while still being subjected to the same dynamics of the market and economic crisis.
“Teachers losing homes, going through economic and personal crises at home and having to dodge the pink slip bullet all create anxiety that will inevitably affect the classroom environment,” he said.
GTA President Michelle Nelson said a comprehensive approach, such as analyzing every single program for cost effectiveness, is needed.
“We agree that in order to meet the budget gap, we would need to consider one or more of the cuts that the district has listed,” she said. “However, in order for us to have confidence in the board and district, we need to see more of a willingness to listen to the recommendations and suggestions of nonmanagement employees.”
Nelson produced a separate savings list generated by teachers and staff. Ideas included foregoing unnecessary textbook adoptions, eliminating cell phone and car allowances for district administrators, not calling back retired administrators for consulting services and getting students who are chronically tardy on the radar of the student attendance review board.
Nelson and Winslow expressed frustration at the lack of a budget crisis committee.
Winslow said the GTA has requested this on several occasions, but “unfortunately genuine reciprocity has yet to unfold,” and that the current list of possible cuts “was developed unilaterally by the district.”
A simple input form on a website, he said, referring to a link on the district’s web page where staff can send suggestions, “is inadequate for the magnitude of this crisis.”
Flores countered the budget study sessions already open to the public provide a broad-based forum for a wide range of school community members wishing to attend and express their input. As for the online suggestion page, she said last year the board received five pages of ideas on how to reduce the budget and increase revenue.
Flores said said between March and June, there will be extensive discussions on what won’t be cut if tax extensions are passed.
“If tax extensions are approved, then we could immediately start recalling staff that just received layoff notices,” she said, referring to any possible layoffs made on March 15.
A special board meeting for reduction in force resolution – determining layoffs – will be held at 7 p.m., March 10 at GUSD.
“It’s a process none of us like,” said Flores. “But we have to do it.”
To offer budget input, click here
