Committee says local tax base needs to increase, and local business should contribute to schools.
By Sylvie Belmond/Staff Writer
Fifty percent of California’s public schools run in the red financially every year. These schools, including the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, are primarily funded with state money; however, these funds are stretched thin, even as the state’s population continues to increase.
A financial oversight committee has been working on possible solutions for the SM-MUSD, making recommendations to the school board last month. Walter Rosenthal, the only Malibu representative on this seven-member committee, highlights some of these suggestions.
As it currently exists, the SM-MUSD school budget is primarily spent on salaries and benefits, and rightly so, said Rosenthal, a former CEO and father of two school-aged children. Rosenthal believes high-quality teachers are the primary component for a good education. But teachers need affordable housing, which is not available in Malibu. This is one area where the city could help, said Rosenthal.
Councilmember Ken Kearsley concurred. Kearsley has taught in the SM-MUSD for 30 years and, ironically, he said he moved to Malibu in 1961 because this was the least expensive place to live he could find.
Kearsley added that the current City Council is sympathetic to the school district’s financial plight. Councilmember Jeff Jennings has three children and his wife teaches for the district, Councilmember Sharon Barovsky was a high school teacher, and Mayor Joan House is a former teacher. However, the financial dilemma remains.
“Malibuites have money and they are ambitious,” said Rosenthal, “but they don’t understand that schools don’t have money for basic things like copy paper, and the PTAs take on the job of raising money for these supplies already.”
The city is also in a bind fiscally, said Kearsley. While Malibu has one of the richest income tax brackets in Southern California, “we have one of the lowest per capita revenue streams,” said Kearsley. There is no tax base to support the city, he said.
Cities get one-eighth of the state sales tax generally, “so that’s going to be an issue in this city,” he said. If funds are to come from the city, “do the people in Malibu support more development, which will create more revenue that can support the schools more?” he asked.
Meanwhile, the school district is left with little discretionary spending money. Fiscally, alternatives must be found if Malibu schools are to be able to provide the quality of education desired by the community, said Rosenthal. “Malibu needs to step up to the plate or they will be unhappy with the results.
“We are going to have to take a lot more responsibility for the education of our children,” said Rosenthal. “We can’t assume that it’s going to be handled by Sacramento or Santa Monica.”
Rosenthal suggests upscale hotels might fill in some of the gap in funding.
Hotels would be more profitable than all the other development plans, he said. “With hotels, we get to keep all the money because of the transient occupancy tax.”
Residential tax increases are not the solution, said Rosenthal, but another bond issue is practically inevitable. The committee agreed a new bond issue should be implemented in the future.
The oversight committee wants the district to ask itself, “How should our children be educated in the future as opposed to how will the children be educated,” explained Rosenthal.
Kearsley agreed. “We have common areas of interest and the city can’t operate in a vacuum,” he said. “We are two governmental bodies that have a common constituency, children.”
To try and work on solutions, a quarterly meeting with the board of education to go over issues common to the district will be set up, said Kearsley, who will be on the ad-hoc committee with Jennings.
According to Rosenthal, the schools’ needs can be met in a variety of ways. Ten percent of the schools’ population is on an inter-district permit, said Rosenthal. “We issue permits to Pepperdine and city employees’ children who go to Webster,” he cited as an example. “But no reciprocity has been asked by the schools for this benefit to show an appreciation.”
However, schools receive approximately $7,000 per inter-district child enrolled, as with all enrolled children.
Rosenthal suggests the university could help out financially as well as materially.
“Pepperdine could endow Malibu schools with a million dollars and share some facilities,” he said. “It’s a very undeveloped relationship.”
Pepperdine officials, however, do not agree with this point of view. Pepperdine representatives say the relationship between the university and Malibu schools is well-developed. Graduate and undergraduate students are placed in local schools to observe and participate as part of their university curriculum.
Betty Glass, who is a former principal of Juan Cabrillo and the Santa Monica Alternative School House and is also a 25-year teaching veteran currently working as a professor at Seaver College in Malibu, believes both entities work hand-in-hand.
“We place our beginning teacher candidates in the district for observation and participation,” she said. These students participate in the school activities with no monetary compensation; it is part of their curriculum.
Students have contributed more than 2,000 hours of student teaching services during the past year, she said.
Lou Drobnick, assistant vice-chancellor for Pepperdine, also said the university provides an Artreach Program sponsored by the Center for the Arts Guild, which serves 10,000 children annually.
Moreover, “We do allow a number of students from the high school that are qualified to attend some advanced classes,” he said.
Pepperdine also provided a pool for the Malibu High School water polo team before it had its own, and let students train on the university track.
“We’ve always had a good relationship, but it’s not a financial relationship,” said Drobnick.
In the interim, until a financial solution is found at the district level, PTAs will continue to play a crucial role for individual schools in the SM-MUSD district and statewide. The funds the organization raises pay for enrichment programs that could not exist without them. “I don’t know what we would do without the PTA,” said Mike Matthews, Malibu High principal.
In order to fully understand the Financial Oversight Committee’s suggestions, Rosenthal strongly recommends readers visit the malibutimes.com Web site to view the committee’s letter to the district in full. The letter will follow this story on the home page.