Encouraged by the results from a 2012 study that found that separating from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District would meet most legal requirements, a group of Malibu parents is aggressively pursuing a goal of creating an independent Malibu school district by July 2015. But many roadblocks remain, including skepticism from unions about the effects of separation on SMMUSD service workers.
A feasibility study commissioned by local group Advocates for Malibu Public Schools (AMPS) earlier this year found that an independent Malibu school district could garner sufficient enrollment and enough property tax and bond revenue to operate. Now the group is commissioning a second study to address concerns listed in the first report. Those concerns include the preservation of bond indebtedness and parcel taxes to fund schools in both the Malibu and Santa Monica communities, as well as a potentially arduous sticking point: whether unionized teachers and service workers would be guaranteed benefits, bargaining rights and job stability if the Santa Monica-Malibu union is disbanded.
AMPS President Craig Foster said the study, to be completed by the educational research company WestEd, should help give information to the unions as the process of potential separation moves forward.
“We want to know how much assurance can we give employees and teachers that we’ll do whatever needs to be done to take care of them,” Foster said.
Keryl Cartee-McNeely, chief steward for Service Employees International Union that represents the district’s service staff, remains unsure about the separation and what it would entail for current SMMUSD service workers.
“We don’t have any strong data that I can go to our union members and say, ‘OK, here’s the deal, and you don’t have anything to worry about [if Malibu separates],’” she said.
Since the SMMUSD office headquarters in Santa Monica hires janitors, gardeners, bus drivers and food service workers, a separation could leave headquarters with a classified worker surplus, according to Cartee-McNeely.
“If Malibu were to separate, Santa Monica would be left with a reduction of the number of schools they would be servicing,” she said. “There would be a potential for staff reduction because headquarters are no longer providing these services to Malibu schools.”
The union would have to know, Cartee-McNeely said, what clear-cut rights are guaranteed to employees at Malibu sites. The follow- up study may not address that.
“Most studies give us significant data,” she said. “I don’t think there’s any study that could give us an exact idea of what would happen in this case, as in ‘This is it, there’s no varying from it.’”
Currently there is no legal entity in Malibu for those unionized teachers and staff to negotiate with. If Malibu separates, a new teacher and service employees’ union would have to form.
Calls for comment from the Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers Association, which represents district teachers, were not returned.
The follow-up study will also examine whether major bond money, including the recently passed $385-million Measure ES, can be legally divided between the two districts and the feasibility of parcel taxes staying in place in separate districts.
The first feasibility study in January assumed that if Malibu separates, it would continue benefitting from Measure R, a parcel tax passed in 2008 that brought in $10.6 million from Santa Monica and Malibu residents beginning in 2011- 2012. In order for Malibu to keep that revenue stream, Sacramento legislators would have to pass special legislation, also called “spot” legislation, to preserve the tax for both communities if the district is granted separation. Legal precedence of past “spot” legislation will be explored in this second study.
Jan Maez, chief financial officer for SMMUSD, said that although precedence in other cases of school district separation in California is relevant, Santa Monica-Malibu might present too unique of a case to compare to other districts.
“Looking at other examples is a way to begin the conversation, but it may not be that other places will work for our particular district,” she said.
Despite the financial and employment areas of concern, Foster remains optimistic about the separation and what the follow- up study will reveal.
The second study should be completed by June 30. AMPS hopes to get the district and Board of Education to approve the separation by September, followed by review by the county and state.
“We’ve given a year timeline for that to take place,” Foster said. “… But there is no requirement for the state [Board of Education] to move on these things quickly or slowly.”
Ideally, AMPS would seek state approval by March 2015, followed by a local ballot measure in May 15. If voters approved the separation, Malibu could be its own district by summer 2015, Foster said.