The school board also votes to boycott Arizona due to its passage of an illegal immigration enforcement law that some people say will lead to racial profiling and another law that prohibits “ethnic studies” programs in K-12 education.
By Jonathan Friedman / Special to The Malibu Times
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education on Friday approved a $106 million general fund spending plan for its 2010-11 fiscal year budget. The plan includes cuts of $7.1 million in program funding and eliminating staff positions, including counseling positions at Malibu High School.
Despite pleas from stakeholders, the board declined to formally address the student/counselor ratio for the upcoming fiscal year at Malibu High School until next month. District staff recommended holding off on the issue because, they said, it could lead to increasing district expenditures, and possibly negatively affect the district’s bond rating. The SMMUSD will soon issue more Measure BB construction bonds.
The staff reductions in the budget plan include layoffs and not replacing staff leaving the district for retirement or other reasons. Among the positions cut were two of the five counselors at Malibu High. This leaves the school with one college counselor and one regular counselor for more than 700 high school students, and a third person dedicated to the middle school program. The fear is that the regular counselor will be overwhelmed by the number of students to be handled, forcing the college counselor to help and therefore reducing the effectiveness of the college counseling program.
“This is an unacceptable practice for a college prep school,” former Board member and Malibu resident Kathy Wisnicki told the board.
Malibu High counselor Luke Sferra told the board the current plan “will leave us in a decimated state.”
At Santa Monica High School, no counselor positions were cut, keeping the ratio at 300 to 1, with 10 counselors. The are also two (down from six this year) “outreach specialists” who deal with children with specific issues, and two college counselors at Santa Monica High for approximately 3,000 students.
“I’m afraid that this inequity in the counselor ratio between our high schools will have a profound effect on our fundraising efforts districtwide, especially in the next 60 days,” Wisnicki said.
The SMMUSD is working with the Santa Monica-Malibu Education Foundation on an accelerated fundraising effort to curb some of the cuts for next fiscal year. Money must come in by Aug. 15 for staff positions to be restored by the fall. Counseling positions are among the priorities. But Wisnicki and others who spoke at the meeting said at least one counselor needs to be restored before August.
Wisnicki said after the meeting she was disturbed a discussion on the counselor issue has been placed on the agenda and was later removed. She also said she did not understand how restoring one counselor position could affect the bond rating for a district with a nine-figure budget.
It appears, based on public comments from school board members, several of whom said they might not have appreciated the full impact of the decision when they voted for the counselor reductions, that there is enough support for restoration of at least one position for Malibu High even if the money is not raised to cover it.
Funding for this would come from the SMMUSD’s shrinking reserve. Wisnicki said she is confident this will happen, but she said this was taking “an unnecessary amount of time.” She also fears that even if one or two positions are restored, it will not be the same people taking them because those employees have already received other job offers.
The approved budget is a fluid document that could see several changes. Most of the district’s revenue comes from Sacramento and it could be several months before the state budget is finalized, so the SMMUSD made many of its financial decisions using the latest available information.
“This budget can change as soon as your first board meeting in July,” said Jan Maez, the district’s chief financial officer. “So I don’t want anybody to think that we’ll be stuck with these numbers for the entire year.”
Budget projections for 2011-12 and 2012-13 show even more difficult times could be ahead. To create projected balanced budgets for those years, district officials included an assumption for $5 million in additional revenue. If that money is not received, more cuts will have to be made.
“Next year is only the beginning unless we can really realize new sources of revenues that are substantial,” Board member Jose Escarce said.
A committee is meeting about possibly putting another parcel tax before voters. Also, the Financial Oversight Committee has presented revenue enhancement ideas.
Also at the meeting, the board voted 6-0 (Kelly Pye was not in attendance) for an economic boycott of Arizona due to its passage of an illegal immigration enforcement law that some people say will lead to racial profiling and another law that prohibits “ethnic studies” programs in K-12 education.
This marked the final meeting for Mike Matthews, the assistant superintendent for human resources. He is leaving to serve as superintendant of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. With the exception of a brief hiatus, Matthews had been with the district since 1993 when he became the principal of the newly formed Malibu High School. Several board members and members of the public praised his tenure, and applauded him for having a good sense of humor while dealing with difficult issues. Superintendent Tim Cuneo choked up when speaking of his colleague.
“Mike, as part of our team, I think we worked really together for the children of this district,” Cuneo said. “I can’t thank you enough for the amount of time and effort, the commitment to our success.”