District revenue includes $6.2 million from the city of Santa Monica and $290,000 from the city of Malibu.
By Hans Laetz/Special to The Malibu Times
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, using the proceeds of the parcel tax, city contributions and $700,000 from its reserve funds, has dodged a bullet and adopted a balanced budget Friday for the upcoming school year. The SMMUSD’s budget for next year will be $107.8 million. Half the budget is for teacher salaries, with the total benefits and labor costs for classified staff and managers bringing total personnel costs to 78 percent of the budget.
The district’s nationally renowned arts and music programs will be maintained at a time when other highly rated California school districts are eliminating them, due to state funding cuts.
Parcel tax revenue, including the $225 per-parcel tax approved by nearly 68 percent of the district’s voters in 2003, makes up 10 percent of the district’s budget. Contributions from the cities of Santa Monica and Malibu also defrayed decreases in state aid, and made up about six percent of the district’s income.
Santa Monica gave nearly $6.2 million to the district. Malibu contributed $290,000, a figure that is much smaller but is nearly the same percentage of the city budget as is the Santa Monica contribution, as Santa Monica has a much larger sales tax revenue base.
Local PTAs and other parent groups, including the Shark Fund at Malibu High School, brought in at least $2.6 million in accounted costs. Many parent contributions were not included in the line-item budget, district officials said.
Superintendent John Deasy said monies “borrowed” by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would have rolled back spending cuts made two years ago, particularly in the area of upper grades class size. “Our budget is reflective of the money that was not sent to us by Sacramento,” Deasy said.
The district also had to cover the governor’s proposed shift of teacher retirement system costs from the state to local schools, which cost SMMUSD $1.2 million. That shift is still subject to negotiation at the state house.
Some 61 percent of the district’s funding is state-aid based on daily attendance figures, which are computed on a statewide basis.
Any potential windfall in increased property taxes is claimed in Sacramento, officials said.