Probably the lowlight of yesterday’s Board meeting was our budget discussion. As I reported in early November, we continue to have a serious budget crisis due to the continued decrease in revenue from the State. And unfortunately the State appears to be in a new fiscal crisis and most people believe it will cut local school budgets even more. As it stands today, we have a $1.5 million hole to fill over the next two years to avoid deficit spending and remain above the legally required 3% financial reserve level.
The good news here is that Dr. Baker has been both creative and aggressive in addressing these problems. He is looking at additional funding sources, and in fact just secured a grant from the Sequoia Healthcare District for about $44K, and he had designs on a number of other grants. Of course the District will also do what it can to support the San Carlos Educational Foundation to maximize its fundraising this year.
However, fundraising alone will not solve the problem. As I have previously reported, this will be a difficult budget season this Spring as we will need to revisit cost reduction measures for next school year, including potential program cuts, class sizes, etc. Also, last night Dr. Baker proposed, and the Board reluctantly but unanimously approved, interim budget cuts this school year. Those cuts included the elimination of 5 positions at the District Office — including 4 layoffs and a resignation that will not be backfilled. Although we all recognized that this move was necessary (as they are cuts farther away from the classroom), we approved this with a heavy heart. I know all of these people personally, and they are all great folks in our community who have contributed so much of themselves for our district. It was one of the sadder moments in a Board meeting since I’ve joined.
We must remember that what the State is doing to us (and every other school district) is devastating, and one way or another, this affects real people and their lives. Although I have faith in our Governance Team’s leadership to do everything possible to minimize the impact to our students and to our staff, it’s unfortunately inevitable that the pain will continue for a while.
Thank you for your service to the community, especially in these difficult times. As you consider future cuts, please keep in mind the results of the community survey done last year–it overwhelmingly pointed to maintaining smaller class size in K-3 as the #1 concern (which was already compromised in last year’s decision to max out numbers per the current teacher contract). Keeping teachers in classrooms should be the top priority–all other programs, staff positions, etc. are nice to have, but don’t reflect the core mission of our schools, which is to teach reading, writing and arithmetic.
Thanks for the comment. That is a fair point, and we will definitely be using the results of last year’s survey as a principal source of feedback (which also included broad support for music and other programs as well). Obviously in these difficult times, tradeoffs will need to be made, and many people have different ideas on the relative value of different initiatives (e.g. class sizes vs. music programs, etc.). Also keep in mind our mission is to serve the “whole child.” All of that said, we’ll of course do the best we can to preserve the most important and effective elements of our educational programs, and we’ll also lean heavily on the advice of the educational experts we’ve hired in the district. It won’t be easy, but I guarantee it will be a thoughtful process.