However, the door remains open for partnerships down the line. The district also announced a tentative agreement with the teachers’ union after more than nine months of negotiations.
By Susan Reines/Special to The Malibu Times
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education decided at a special meeting Thursday not to partner with the community college on a bond for education and sports facilities, although the board members paid lip service to the partnership concept and left the door open for future collaborations.
Santa Monica College’s administration has been lobbying the cities of Malibu and Santa Monica and the Board of Education to join the college in placing a $175 million bond measure on the November ballot-even though the College Board of Trustees itself has not decided whether to endorse the measure.
The bond would allow public agencies to work together to fulfill common needs such as playing fields to be used for both college and community teams or childcare centers that would provide hands-on training for the college’s child development students and daycare for residents.
All four of the Board of Education members present at Thursday’s meeting expressed full support for the idea of partnerships. The board’s Malibu representative, Mike Jordan, was excused from the meeting.
“The concept is good, and I don’t think any of us are debating that,” said Board Member Maria Leon-Vazquez, who is running for re-election in November.
Nevertheless, the board ultimately came to a unanimous decision to decline the college’s offer, saying there was not adequate time before the November election to discuss its priorities and determine whether there was enough money to invest in partnership projects.
“It just seems like it’s hard for us to enter into a partnership on unequal terms because we haven’t had time to study what our needs are,” Board Member Oscar de la Torre said.
Furthermore, some board members expressed concern that joining the partnership bond now would impede the district’s ability to win voter support for bonds to fund the district’s solo projects in the future.
“The biggest concern that I have now is really protecting-to the degree that we can protect-the school district’s ability to go out for a bond,” Board Member Julia Brownley said. She said assessment of the district’s priorities would “certainly” reveal projects the district needed to complete by itself, without the college’s involvement.
Don Girard, the college’s director of marketing, said the opportunity for partnerships would not expire until “the money is spent,” so the door will be open for about 10 years.
The City of Malibu has not formally signed on to the bond measure, but members of the City Council and the city attorney have been meeting with college officials. Mayor Sharon Barovsky told the College Board of Trustees in June that she believed Malibu voters would support partnering with the college to purchase the Civic Center Chili Cook-Off property and build a small instructional facility.
Santa Monica’s City Council members have been split over whether to endorse the bond; with some saying there is not enough time to gather public input. They will vote this week.
Regardless of whether the cities join, the ultimate decision about whether the bond goes to the ballot lies with the members of the College Board of Trustees, some of whom have indicated wariness about asking voters for $175 million just two years after they won a $160 million bond. They will make a decision on Aug. 2, days before the ballot submission deadline.
Preliminary polling showed 65 percent of Malibu and Santa Monica voters supporting the bond, significantly more than the 55 percent required for approval.
Benefits No. 1 priority for teachers’ union
In other news, after more than nine months of negotiations, the Santa Monica Malibu Classroom Teachers Association and the district reached a tentative agreement on teachers’ salaries and benefits.
The settlement calls for teachers to receive full coverage for either HMO or the least expensive PPO plan. Those who choose to select pricier PPO plans would pay the difference between their rates and the cheapest possibility, and the district would use the savings from not fully covering those plans to fund a 1 percent salary increase effective February 2005.
The district had remained adamant during more than 20 negotiation sessions that it would have to freeze its benefits payout-saddling teachers with the cost of any rate increases-while SMMCTA maintained that benefits coverage was its number one priority.
After months of deadlock, CAL PERS Insurance announced in June that its rates would decrease in the coming year, rather than further inflating, and the district and SMMCTA reached the settlement soon after.
Harry Keiley, SMMCTA President, said the negotiations were “some of the most difficult and challenging in recent history” because of state budget cuts and high insurance rates.
The board will not formally approve the settlement until August, but made it clear Thursday that its members unanimously supported the terms. SMMCTA’s members will ratify the agreement in September.