Budget Talks Draw Intense Debate, Colorful Public Comment

It was an intense evening of debate and public comment during last night’s meeting of the Dixon Unified School District School Board. But by the end of the evening, the board took a cautious approach and directed staff to prepare a budget without added expenses.

Physical education teachers and kindergarten instructional aides were at the heart of last night’s debate. The positions – nine PE teachers and 14 kindergarten instructional aids – would have cost the district an additional $222,775 for the 2011-2012 school year.

It’s an amount that one of the board members said would jeopardize the district and put it in line for negative certification from the Solano County Office of Education.

“If we do that then we move into a situation where we are in greater jeopardy, sooner,” board member Herb Cross said. “To me that means that rather than extending status quo for one more year, we gain some programs for a year, but then we lose to some greater extent the following year. I can’t agree with that.”

Cross argued that the ratio of one adult per 45 students would remain the same if the board voted to add classified employees to physical education classes within the District. As it stands today, PE courses have consisted of one classified employee (a teacher) and one non-classified employee (an aide) that instruct a group of an average of 90 students.

It’s a formula that many parents, teachers and students have called unsafe because the teacher must direct the entire 90 or so students with the assistance of the aide, rather than having a teacher who can direct half of the group on their own. Many students have testified to the board that the physical education classes at their schools are in fact extended recesses and that students aren’t learning physical education.

The kindergarten instructional aides would have assisted kindergarten teachers throughout the district with the upcoming extension of the school day for kindergartners.

Board member Irina Okhremtchouk moved that the board develop a budget with the PE teachers and kindergarten aides included, noting that federal funds could help finance those positions. She also said that the board would have to change the name of the class from PE to recess if they didn’t hire more classified staff.

“We cannot call it a physical education class, this is definitely not a class by any means,” she said. “We can’t call one teacher to roughly 100 students a structured class. If we are going to call it a class, we are going to have to make it a class.”

Board President John Gabby echoed her statements.

“The bigger deal isn’t adding a program or making it more desirable, it’s making it safe and I don’t think that our physical education classes are safe now,” Gabby said.

Board member Gil Pinon said the district should focus on innovative ways of generating revenue so that it won’t have to rely on what the state is doing.

Chief Business Official Cecile Nunley painted a volatile portrait of what is going on with the state’s budget.

Nunley told the board that they should proceed with caution when developing the budget because of the uncertainty that is happening on the state level.

One of the biggest cliffhangers for the district involves the extension of special taxes that many districts have relied upon to keep them afloat. If the state’s budget does not include the extension of the taxes, which would place it on the November ballot for voters to decide, Nunley projected that the district would be deficit spending to the tune of $2.57 million in the 2011-2012 school year.

Even with the extension of the taxes, the district is deficit spending by $1.4 million. It’s an amount that the district hopes to cover with its reserves. Payment deferrals are another key factor that will impact DUSD, Nunley said.

The state owes DUSD $6,481 per ADA, but Nunley said she expects DUSD to receive about 80 percent of it or $5,200 because of the state’s deficit factor.  Of that figure, the state can defer payment to the district and give about 70 percent of it, amounting to $3,641 per ADA.

Solano County Office of Education Associate Superintendent Leticia Allen admonished the board and told them to not make their fiscal situation worse by adding the PE teachers and kindergarten aides. Allen told the board the county’s Office of Education would place a financial advisor at their cost to put them on the right track if the county deems DUSD’s budget fiscally unsound.

Last night’s meeting drew colorful, sometimes heated comments from the public. Guy Garcia, president of the Dixon Schools Athletic Boosters Club, told the board that if they include the expenditures on the budget, they are going to need to re-negotiate union contracts.

“If you are going to do this, I am OK with it, but you better give them direction (to re-negotiate),” Garcia said.

Of last night’s comments, SEIU 1021 Field Representative Seth Francois’ were perhaps the most colorful.

Francois told the board: “Here, locally, what I’ve been hearing is that it’s really an organizational leadership issue. And you know, you can manage markets and you can manage programs – but you lead people. But look, just picture this; if you owned a McDonald’s, would you not serve hamburgers because you have a budget issue? You are in a business of education. Now last time I was here, I suggested everybody look at the mission of Dixon. Some people who are speaking here, makes me feel that you don’t know the mission.”

Cross suggested to the board that they could re-visit adding the extra positions once it's “prudent” to do so. The board voted against preparing a budget that included the PE and kindergarten staff by a margin of 2-2, with Herb Cross and John Gabby voting against it and Gil Pinon and Irina Okhremtchouk voting for it. Board member Jim Ernst was not present due to illness, according to Gabby.

The split vote resulted in the board giving direction to staff to prepare a budget without the extra positions.

Nunley said she will return to the board with the prepared budget on June 30, and said she hopes she will know more about the state budget by then.

She said everyone should be aware of a key element of the budget as it stands today.

“The district has not eliminated any programs,” she said. “That’s a key item that I really think should be out there. The district hasn’t eliminated any key programs, yet we are still maintaining our current level of service to our students, the community and staff. We have not changed any benefits; we have not increased class sizes.