In addition to another parcel tax, ideas such as allowing advertising on school campuses and buses, as well as targeted fundraising are put on the table.
By Jonathan Friedman / Special to The Malibu Times
With the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District facing the possibility of its financial reserves running dry by the middle of next year, district officials must come up with a combination of cost cuts and revenue enhancements. The SMMUSD’s Financial Oversight Committee, or FOC, presented revenue concepts at the Board of Education’s meeting last Thursday.
The FOC’s ideas include an additional parcel tax, something a special district committee is already studying. The board will consider at its Dec. 10 meeting a proposal from that committee on a possible ballot measure. Other ideas include targeted fundraising, licensing the use of district names for merchandise, a campaign to increase student attendance and allowing more non-district residents into the SMMUSD (state funding is based on daily attendance) and placing ads on campuses and buses as well as on the district’s Web site.
FOC member Paul Silvern said most of the concepts would require “some modest investments” with the potential for gaining money in the future.
“But I think for your budget planning purposes, at least for the coming year, none of these are likely to produce revenue that will help you solve the problem that you face immediately, with the possible exception of the parcel tax,” Silvern said.
District Superintendent Tim Cuneo added, “It’s not the quick solution. The solution that we’re going to have to deal with is very difficult decisions around [cutting or reducing] programs, and those programs are people.”
Cuneo said SMMUSD officials would be studying the FOC’s revenue ideas, and come to the board with findings shortly after Jan. 1. The board members spoke briefly about the revenue ideas at Thursday’s meeting, and continued the discussion during a workshop on Saturday. Board member Ben Allen said on Thursday that he likes the ideas of license fees, but is not enthused about advertising to SMMUSD students.
“There’s something about advertising on our campuses that gives me kind of the creeps,” Allen said. “It’s a confined environment and we really do have to protect our children. They’re flooded with advertising messages in the real world. And I’d hate to see that happening at school.”
Board member Oscar de la Torre said his support of whether to allow advertisements for students would depend on what kinds of products they were.
The district is operating on a $10 million deficit for the current school year. That amount is expected to increase during at least the next two years under the district’s current budget plan. The SMMUSD’s financial reserves must cover the deficit spending. But there is not enough money in the reserves to do that much longer.
“Without further action, our district is projected to burn through $22 million in reserves within 18 months,” FOC Chair Cynthia Torres told the board. “The Financial Oversight Committee finds this prospect totally unacceptable.”
With most of the SMMUSD’s funding (72 percent) coming from the state, Sacramento’s budget struggles are the district’s problem too. The state must deal with its own estimated $21 billion budget shortfall. A consequence of that will be less money to school districts. Numerous SMMUSD programs are on the potential chopping block or face reductions, although there is no official proposal on the table.
Also at Thursday’s meeting, the board approved the purchase of two homes next to Edison Language Academy in Santa Monica for a total of $3,365,000. District officials say the transactions are necessary to make room for a school expansion project.
District officials had been in discussion with the two families that own the homes for several months, but were unable to reach settlements. An agreement was finally reached after the district began the eminent domain legal process.
“The board found that these settlements were advantageous and will result in substantial savings to the district,” Board President Ralph Mechur said about the decision, which was made during the closed session portion of the meeting.