Déjà vu all over again! In 1983, I resigned the position of assistant Superintendent of Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) for the same reasons that the current holder of that position recently resigned. Disagreement with the school board as to the fiscal integrity of the district was the main reason. All the names are different now, but the same conditions prevail. The school board doesn’t agree with the fiscal manager of the district as to the financial soundness of the district.
This has been an ongoing riff among school boards, teacher’s unions and fiscal officers. As more teacher union supported governing board members are elected to school boards, we see more and more money going to salaries/employee benefits and less to supplies, textbooks, program needs, facilities maintenance and repairs, and student assistance (counseling, tutoring, ESL, recreation, child care, etc.).
The school district has been “bailed out’ by parcel taxes, lottery funds, PTA donations, bond issues, developer fees, city donations, federal aid, state funding, grants, and public financial support. Financially prudent reserves are ignored or thought of as unnecessary.
Why hire highly skilled financial advisors and then disregard their expertise and ignore their recommendations? Does the school board really think they know more than these daily practitioners of financial services?
A few years ago the Los Angeles Unified School District teachers had to give back a negotiated raise or put the district into bankruptcy. Is this where SMMUSD is headed? Or will the taxpayers have to bail them out once again?
I can certainly understand the frustration and the decision made by the current assistant superintendent. He has my best wishes and congratulations for having the intestinal fortitude to put his job on the line. For his information, I was hired by the Long Beach Unified School District as budget director immediately after leaving SMMUSD.
Peter A. Lippman