The unified School District board voted to reconvene a citizens committee to examine an emergency funding measure in case state funding is slashed. It also approved the layoffs of 11 employees, and clashed with Superintendent Tim Cuneo over a plan to reconfigure health services.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
In preparation for possible significant cuts of state funding, the Santa Monica-Malibu School District Board of Education voted last week to explore placing an emergency tax proposal before Santa Monica and Malibu voters, and approved layoff notices for 11 employees. The board also unanimously rejected outgoing Superintendent Tim Cuneo’s plan to reconfigure district healthcare services. One board member directly questioned Cuneo for his reasoning.
The board voted unanimously to reconvene a citizens committee to explore a parcel tax or alternative funding measure for the November ballot. Board members said the vote was necessary due to uncertainty surrounding the amount of state funding coming to the district this year, as the ongoing struggle of the state Legislature to agree on a budget continues.
The last tax proposals to pass were Measure Y, a half-cent sales tax increase, approved by Santa Monica voters in November 2010, and YY, which recommended the Santa Monica City Council give half the estimated $12 million in annual revenue to education. Those measures went into effect this spring.
The newly formed citizens committee of up to 35 members will be authorized to spend up to $50,000 to poll the electorate regarding parcel tax feasibility, according to a district staff report.
Board Vice President Ben Allen stressed that a parcel tax or alternative funding measure would only be necessary if state funding drops substantially.
“I think it’s very unlikely to be necessary, but I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t put in place procedures beforehand in case if we needed to turn to this sort of option,” Allen said.
As part of the vote, the board also directed the citizens committee to study the feasibility of a bond measure for maintenance costs to the district after Measure BB funding expires. The committee would then make a recommendation to the board in spring of 2012. The citizens committee is comprised of community members with expertise in finance and accounting.
The board also voted to direct Cuneo to negotiate with the Santa Monica city manager for changes to a revenue-sharing contract prepared by the City of Santa Monica for Measure Y funding. The board objected to a provision in the contract that allowed the city manager to unilaterally terminate the contract if he or she deemed the district had not lived up to its contractual duties, as well as a sunset provision that would require the district to renew the contract after 10 years.
Child services employees laid off
The board also voted to lay off 11.3 full-time equivalent employees in the Child Development Services Department. Preliminary estimates suggest the layoffs could save the district between $500,000 and $700,000. The CDS department provides early childhood education and childcare for teen parents in school, and generally assists lower-income students. The cuts were made following the recent notification by the state that funding for the programs would be cut for the next school year.
Cuneo suggests using little trained health clerks at schools
The board clashed with Cuneo over a discussion item about changes to the district’s health services program. An ad hoc committee formed by district staff at the board’s request in February had conceived a plan to widen health coverage to students by replacing two nurses with lesser-qualified but less costly Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs) and health clerks.
However, Cuneo presented a different proposal than the committee, which consisted of a broad-based group of physicians, school nurses, community members and the CEO of Cedars-Sinai hospital, among others. Cuneo proposed reducing the number of school nurses in the district to seven and hiring eight health clerks. By comparison, the committee recommended retaining the current 9.6 nursing positions for the next school year and gradually shifting responsibilities to LVNs and a smaller number of health clerks.
“I’m very puzzled as to why [the superintendent’s] model has been proposed,” Pat Nolan, a citizen who served on the ad hoc committee, said during public comment. “I feel that we made recommendations that were based not on personal opinions … but on expert advice that we got from many members of the committee.”
Board members agreed, saying that the reduction of nursing staff in Cuneo’s plan was too dramatic.
“The superintendent’s change is too abrupt,” Board President Jose Escarce said.
Cuneo said the decision to shift nursing duties to health clerks was based upon discussions he had with several district principals.
“The principals made it quite clear … that on average, 50 percent of the time that children had health needs could have been handled by a health clerk versus the needs of [a registered nurse],” Cuneo said.
But board members reacted incredulously to the requirement in Cuneo’s plan that health clerks would only have to have three days of medical training from district nurses prior to the school year before serving students.
“Were you really proposing three days of training for health clerks?” Board Vice-President Ben Allen asked Cuneo.
After deliberating, the board directed Cuneo to provide them at a future meeting a range of options that followed the committee’s recommendation of 9.6 nurses for the 2011-12 school year.