More Budget Information

As questions continue to be asked about our budget situation (appropriately so), we have isolated an enhanced podcast with both PowerPoint slides and audio from Mike Fine's presentation on the budget to the Board on February 1st.  I realize that it is long (about 1 hour), but it will give you the best possible synopsis of information regarding the budget in RUSD.

Additionally, if you refer to page 2 of the Budget Advisory Committee (BAC) report provided on February 1st, you will see that there is a we have taken a reduction “of over $60 million in recent years.” The report goes one to say that the needed $50 million reduction represents 14% reduction in the operating budget.  IF (and we are NOT recommending this), there were a proportional reduction in all expenses -- it would equate to our teachers being reduced by 5+ weeks and a corresponding reduction of 4+ weeks for our students.  This is NOT what we are recommending, but hopefully it provides some perspective of the challenge before us.

Bad Can Be Worse

In the midst of all this District chaos and budget upset, there is another perspective. We have many in our community that have been severely impacted by the economic downturn. We need to help each other. Many families have lost employment or a major part of their income.

From a student perspective (which represents families in our community), we have about 60% (3 out of every 5) of our students at or below the poverty line and therefore receiving federal “free or reduced” meals. We have 1,500 students that are homeless and are in fairly dire straits. Of greatest concern, we have students that we suspect ONLY get to eat when they are at school (breakfast & lunch programs). One of our local non-profit organizations come together weekly, to provide 500 of our neediest students with a backpack full of non-perishable food to assist them through the weekend. What happens to them on a 4-day "weekend" like this one? These are desperate times.

Our Mayor has appropriately talked somewhat regularly about the social capital in Riverside. I hope that part of our collective capital is going to assist those that struggle more than we do. Do you know of efforts in our community to assist others less fortunate than ourselves?

Our employees are working to do their part

We continue to look for any and all reductions that we can make to our budget to minimize the impacts. This is NOT really possible at this point as we are in our 8th year of budget reductions. Obviously, there is less and less to find and we are a long way beyond just “improving efficiency.” We were pleased this past week (finishing this week) to bring site level stakeholders together to assist us with specific recommendations about what they see as possible areas to recover some dollars. Additionally, they provided us with information about what should we continue to hold as a high priority.

One of the ideas that many have forwarded to us over time, is the notion of employees taking “furlough” days or something similar. This is an item that is generally negotiable with our employee associations – and requires their concurrence. At our next Board meeting, with the concurrence of our management / confidential employees, there is a proposal to take an on-going workyear reduction of 5 days. With 92% of our budget wrapped up in “people” costs, it is good to see our colleagues digging in to do their part and help us work towards a balanced budget.

Has It Always Been Like This?

I had the occasion to spend Friday morning at RCOE along with the other superintendents and CBOs in Riverside County listening to Ron Bennett, President & CEO, of School Services of California. Typically, Ron and SSC are regarded as the experts in education financing in California. Ron stated what has been pretty much the message from across the state – the Governor’s January budget, while not good – is probably as good as it gets. As Ron stated, “California would like to meet its obligations, but it can’t.”

Probably the most interesting and illustrative comment that Ron made was based on his long history with funding of public education in California. Ron recalled in the days of Governor George Deukmejian when we had a situation somewhat similar to this, educational spending was dreadful. We were spending at $3,500 per student and prisoners were costing the state twice that at $7,000. The most striking part of his statistics is that we are currently receiving $5,014 per student (statewide average) and the cost of incarceration is in excess of $52,000 per prisoner (over 10 times that of educational funding). Solving the problems in California may have something to do with priorities.

So What Really Happened?

So trying to understand what happened to our schools and funding is really difficult -- at least for me. It seemed that everything was going well -- when BAM!! -- the bottom falls out and we are making all kinds of cuts. When we have completed those cuts, we have to make MORE cuts -- when does it stop? Where did we ever come up with the "running on empty" concept?

Recently, Mike Fine tried to provide a bit of perspective on what has happened with state funding of education. While it does not help me "understand" -- it does give me some more perspective on how we in RUSD are caught up in this mess. Probably most illustrative is slide 12 on page 6, which shows the last several years and some future years. While we had a significant drop in funds as represented by the blue line -- we were protected temporarily by federal stimulus funds (gold line) and short-term options (red line) -- the has hidden the REAL impacts (for a short time).

Tuesday -- A Most Interesting Day

Tuesday morning I took a quick trip to Sacramento and met with the Governor's staff along with several other superintendents. NONE of us like the reductions we are taking in education and the ones that we are likely to take as the state continues to balance it's $20 Billion deficit beyond the Governor's January Budget proposal. Realizing that we are and will take reductions in educational funding -- we need to try and influence how we receive the "cuts" such that we can use them most effectively to meet the needs of our students and classrooms.

The Governor did stop by and one point and DID reiterate his commitment to protecting public education and students as well as possible with the least amount of reductions possible. Given the dire circumstances of the state budget and economy -- that is quite a statement -- which, given the circumstances, I am inclined to believe that is his intent.

Beyond all of that the discussion in and around the capitol, as we consider what our long-term issues are, continue to make the case that this situation is our "new normal" and it is unlikely that we will have a "rebound."

Difficult times with impacts to all

This is an unprecedented situation and horrific times when we have to go through the process of laying off 160 teachers last night in attempt to partially balance a $49 million deficit. This is before the "next hit" that comes with the May Revise and the Legislative wrangling. We sincerely hope that we will be able to "bring back" some or all of these teachers based on retirements, moving out of the area, and general attrition. Our teachers and our staff are what we are about -- we are in the PEOPLE business. We hope that "early notice" assists in some small manner.

We have lost $66.3 million to operate RUSD over the past 8 years. We are losing $48.9 million for this coming school year (2010-11) for a total of $115+ million. Our broad-based Budget Advisory Committee is doing heroic work to find the least oppressive solutions -- but with these losses -- program, students, and schools cannot help but be impacted.