tv [untitled] April 28, 2011 4:00pm-4:30pm PDT
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gauging the community and providing meaningful opportunities for stakeholders to inform the budget decisions -- at schools and at the district level. we have -- and this is a very rough proposal. we are still fleshing out the details. some of the areas we have looked at our targeted to close the deficit. again, this is just a proposal. we have some additional revenue from the arra pose a fiscal stimulus money that we can utilize in the current fiscal year to the tune of a little over $200,000 that would help cushion some of the deficit that we are facing. in 2011-2012, we look forward to receiving some rainy day funds
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from the city's rainy day reserve. we are proposing $5.5 million of cuts to essential services. and an additional $5.3 million cut to school sites. $2 million of cuts to -- i'm sorry. question -- when you're talking about cuts to school sites, can you give me an idea -- what with these cuts manifest? what does it look like? >> first of all, these $5.3 million cuts are already incorporated in the allocations. the reduced allocations under scenario b that we gave, that the schools received in order to do their budgets include this $5.3 million deduction from the prior year levels. this could be as schools are sending in their budgets and we are reviewing them, these could
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be actual consolidation of teachers. could be cutting back on certain core programs. could be prioritizing how schools are using their supplemental funding to ensure that they retain programs in the schools. >> thank you. >> i just wanted to comment on your question, supervisor. at school sites, they are given a lump sum of money. from that, that budget -- so their budgets have been cut. when we talk to principles of the scenario b, many have said they did not know how they can operate a school on that. ms. increase class size and the reduction of programs. it means they may have to get rid of some courses completely that they are offering. we just heard from lincoln high school. there is no music program there. we are looking at -- we have
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been trying to protect class size, k-three. that has great impact on student achievement. we might have to raise this. it might mean more furlough days. that means lost instructional time. actually, what this represents is cut here at our budget meeting we discussed was this really represents over -- i guess it is three years now. it would mean a 40% reduction in our general fund. over three years. we do not know actually. when we look at projections of having to cut $84 million, for the 2012-2013 school year, quite frankly, we do not know how to resolve this. many school districts, i think we should be reminded -- many school districts have been taking over all over the state. we suspect that there will be hundreds of school districts in the state of california that
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would be taken over as state. we must keep a 2% reserve at all times, and if we cannot keep the reserve, we should not be in this business. because that is not even enough to keep you solvent. so we are asking, i think -- you know, we have had to send a lot of layoff notices. frankly, we do not know whether or not we laid up of -- as we said, we said enough notices out. >> how many were sent out? >> we sent out 500 -- i don't know. i think it is about 500 of them, though. we think we cut it maybe a little too close to balance our budget. we are cutting transportation. we are cutting everything. we have seen some districts in california that have cut football. i mean, you cut football, you are really, you know, getting a lot of people mad.
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so, of course, we are trying to protect that. our media students, the ones the farthest behind, to bring them up. we also implemented a new graduation requirement, which will need more of a safety net. 62% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch. so we have high needs. we have high need students, and we have high need for money. >> thank you for bringing this clearer once again, dismal presentation to our attention. [laughter] but thank you for elaborating. i tend to, i think -- part of my job is to focus more on the numbers, but i'm glad you are flashing some of these impacts out. again, these are all being reviewed, discussed. we will be having budget review
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meetings for central services fairly soon. i think we all agree that the cuts, to the extent possible, should be minimized and kept away from our schools. >> we have one question from supervisor chu. >> i can take it after you're finished with your presentation. >> thanks. >> and sorry, we have another. continue, please. thank you. >> ok. some other options that we are exploring, and a lot of this actually rests on negotiations with our collective bargaining units, and these would be reducing our ap prep allocation time. this would impact our high schools, primarily. increasing our allocated class
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sizes, and just as a note, the majority of school districts and -- in california are actually going to much larger class sizes. reducing -- cutting transportation again. we may even explore the possibility of cutting some special education transportation, although that is not really as easy as it sounds. another potential -- another option is school closure and reductions for some of the items that we have already identified for potential cuts. some revenue-generating efforts we have put on the table, looking at our real estate leases, maximizing our revenue
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through leasing our real estate, having another local tax, going out for grants and donations, maximizing our medical reimbursement program, potential draw on the rainy day reserves in 2012-2013, and really pushing to increase -- reduce our truancy rates and increase our attendance rate so that the district brings in more money, more revenue. our schools have finished their budgets. we were working under the assumption that the $349 was a real cut, and schools were asked to submit their budgets based on a drastically reduced allocation. if things could get worse, we will need to adjust our
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assumptions accordingly. what else can we do? legislative advocacy, no suspension pledge, a joint advocacy without core network of large districts, seek assistance from the city's rainy day reserve, and we really need to acknowledge all the support and all the efforts that have been critical to the unified school district. thanks to the public education in richmond fund, the teacher and education act, the city's rainy day reserve, we have been able to maintain more services than most comparable school districts in california. the next few slides, obviously -- this is a draft of our budgeting timeline.
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we will hold community meetings this next week and the week after. a revision comes out on may 15 -- sorry, in mid-may. we have notices for staff and other employees. between may and june, we will be working on a budget that we can then recommend to the board. the board of education will adopt the school district budget at the meeting on june 28. the next slide shows you how deep the cuts have run over the last several years. the flat base line, nothing changes, no suspension of proposition 98. it is a blue line. it depicts what an average unified school district would have received.
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if the state had just maintain funding. the green line at the bottom is the reality. it is what school districts, k- 12 education has received, through either suspension of proposition 98 or through cuts -- or non-funding of colette and additional reductions. in 2010-2011, if you notice, there is an area -- an arrow that goes in the right direction. this is -- represents the deficit with the $349 per ada cut. this is taking a little time to load.
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ok, i guess this is not -- this graph, if it shows up, basically shows over the last -- i don't know, maybe 40 or 50 years, it looks like -- how much california schools have been underfunded by compared to the rest of the u.s. guide to acronyms. appendix c is a broad overview of the school district's budget. the big pie chart shows the different proportions of our general fund. the restricted, which is all of state and federal and local programs, and we have other funds like the cafeteria fund --
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sorry, the student nutrition fund, the child development fund, healthy children's fund, enterprise fund, kow. the last slide is an overview of our unrestricted general fund expenditures and budget reductions. as you can see, the largest chunk is school site allocations. we have sections for the rest of the budget. this is the unrestricted general fund budget. that is the end of my little presentation, and i apologize if i took longer than i needed to. any questions? >> we have a few questions. commissioner norton first. commissioner norton: if it was not addressing the first time, it certainly was the sun appeared i wanted to make two comments, the first being that we are in a much better situation than a lot of other
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districts across california because of the help that we have gotten from the city, and i think it is really important to point that out, that the rainy day fund access and the proposition h fund had been crucial to maintaining where we are now, so we are grateful for that. the other thing i wanted to say is that the california teachers association and our local teachers union are planning a week of action around the budget situation, so they 9-13, there will be rallies in sacramento, and rallies and events locally every day of that week -- may 9- 13. i think we can still advocate to make the situation better. the solutions are not easy, but i think the people rise up and said that this is unacceptable, because it is unacceptable, we have a shot that may be moving -- may be moving a few votes in
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the legislature -- maybe moving a few votes in the legislature. u and i uesf -- and i know that uesf is going to bring a bus. their plans are still very fluid, but on their website, or on the cta web site, there will be more information for people. >> thank you. supervisor chu: thank you for your presentation. just a couple of questions -- the numbers that i saw here with regard to the ada reductions, there were three scenarios. one was a flat situation where it would be a reduction of $19 per ada.
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the second was the $330, and you laid out another one, which is if it wasn't all cuts budget, potentially $825. just wondering what the $330 [inaudible] what assumption is that tied to? >> that is what -- the failure to extend the temporary taxes -- let's say the temporary tax extension would have brought in additional revenue to the state of $3.4 million. -- billion dollars. of which, $2.1 billion would have been to fund k-12 education. failure of that tax extension, the $2.1 billion shortfall now translates into a cut of $330 per ada for all school districts.
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>> the $330 is basically the interpretation of losing the $2.1 billion across the state and education. ok, and the $825 reduction, is that assuming that all of the cuts are in education? >> that will be assuming an all cuts budget. education would also be cut by anything from $4 billion to $5 billion. supervisor chu: my next question has to do with the current multi-year baseline projection. i say that if we saw flat funding -- in the total and restricted revenue that shows about -- i guess, $381.9 million in the second interim budget, and then the next year out, it's as $358 million, this is based on, i guess, the $330 reduction? >> this is -- although the major
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chunk of this total is the ada- generated funding, this also includes funding from state categorical programs and federal programs. that does incorporate the $330 reduction. >> and then a quick clarification, with a 2% reserve level the commissioner had spoken about earlier, what is that based off of? based on expenditures? >> it is based on total expenditures and other of go. >> what is your current required to% -- 2% reserve level? >> it is around $11 million. >> currently, the required reserve level is about $11 million, if i read your charts right, you have got a fund balance beginning -- or ending at least in last year of almost $40 million. at the end of this year, you
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expect to have a fund balance of $45.9 million? so that does exceed your percentage, which is a good thing, so you have that to weather the storm. i'm trying to understand, has it been a collective policy on the part of the board to set aside money in the case that you have a dire budget situation? >> the ending fund balance that we are projecting for the current year, when you net out our 2% reserve and other designations, we have -- we would have a balance of $29.1 million, which we fortunately -- it does help in easing some of the reductions for next year, but as you can see, it does not really go beyond the first year.
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>> so it sounds like, at the end of this year, at the end of this fiscal year, the school district is expecting to have an ending fund balance of 45.9, which is better than ours. hours for the city will be $3 million, at the end of this year, our general fund reserve, but after you net out what is required to stay in a 42% level among other things, the amount of money you have to program is 29.1 for the next year. >> right. >> ok. finally, on the other options, you have laid out on slide 11, you talk about different revenue-generating efforts. one of the ones that was interesting to me was the -- two of them were the real estate leases and medical recovery. i guess i do not know what it would be. is that for medical services that the school district provides? >> eligible students that are
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reimbursable. them and medical services currently provided on the school site for individuals who are eligible. we currently do not build? >> we bill, but there's a lot of potential output to maximize it further. >> that is great. for the real-estate leases, we have the same issue in the city, which is we have party across the city, and there are sometimes opportunities to leave it to certain folks, and sometimes, it is a conscious effort to say yes or no to particular vendors or service providers. do you think that will provide any relief in the short term, or will it be the fact that there are a lot of facilities that would need a lot of work and repair before it actually could be rented? >> i have not really been very closely involved in this period could commissioner norton
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address that? >> i did not think there is anything immediate that we have in the hopper, but there are certain properties that always come up. it is actually right adjacent to the campus, so that is one that we do not have a use for. it needs a tremendous amount of work, but if we could get sf state to buy it, that would be good for us, although i do not know if they have the money to do it. there are options like that that we have talked about for a long time. i do not think there is anything that will provide as immediate relief in the next couple of years. >> thank you. >> i think that there is 3 that i would cite. there's also two other properties, 1950 mission, and
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the other is 1155 page street. i would echo what commissioner norton pointed out, which is i would not see anything immediately happening, but we are actively looking at those properties for development. and moving forward with an rfp sometime in the near future. i'm not sure the exact timing, but those big ones some point out. we want to repeat what the superintendent has said, which is that we are reluctant to put anything out there at fire sale prices. i think that considering all the options, whether it be a sale or a lease, and then also keeping in mind that we do not really know what the future is going to hold in terms of enrollment. five years ago, we would not have said that we were still expecting a decrease in, and we would never have said we would be opening a kindergarten, and lo and behold, we did. things change very quickly, so there is a real reluctance to dispose of any property without very careful consideration.
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>> right, and just to clarify, my point was not to get rid of property to sell it. it was really if there are shorter term leases or other opportunities that were available, but even that might be a challenge if the facility needs to be brought to a level where it would be leasable. >> and if i may, not only are those properties not develop, but even estimated on the ground lease, like 1950 mission, the proposal would be for about $500,000 we would get annually for our ground lease. that is $500,000, which is nowhere near helping us. >> i have one question that relates to this particular topic. i also see as a revenue- generating effort to increase attendance rate. i wonder -- what is the strategy around increasing attendance rate?
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>> part of our reorganization into our area zone has been also to focus on having a full-time attendance liaison community coordinator assigned with each of our areas zones. they have come on board this year, maybe one or two vacancies, but they pretty much will be on board, and that is their mission, to call every day, make every effort possible, work with school principals to make sure that they are falling through with the kids' attendance and reaching out to the community in terms of excused absences being not acceptable.
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other than, besides the child's educational interests in mind, there is this other fallout of not being able to capture the revenue for any child that is not present in the classroom. >> how much money are we losing on an annual basis when a student is not in class? >> we have averaged about 95% or leased in the last three years that i can recollect, and even a 1% by attendance -- both -- bump in attendance translates to about $2 million or $3 million roughly. if we increased by 1%, that would be an increase of 500 ada, and roughly with funding of $500
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per, that is -- quickly, somebody, do the math. it is about -- i'm sorry, what? >> here is a calculated. $4,500 multiplied by 500. in that ballpark. >> where are we with our attendance? 65%? 95, and site. >> 95% on average. >> ok, so we need to tackle and bring in that outstanding 5%, the outstanding 5% could be somewhere between -- $10 million or $15 million? >> 1% is about $2 million.
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5% would be close to $10 million, correct. >> thank you. >> just add to that, i just actually went out to one of the superintendent zones and had a meeting with the attendance liaison there, and she is finding great success because she not only works with the executive in the superintendent zone, she is from the community and knows the community, and that is one of the caveat is we have asked, and i think they are actually trying to get funding for her to work over the summer time where parents are less stressed about the day-to-day getting to the child to school but can be more amenable to a conversation about how we can help get the child to school, so just on that particular topic. i wanted to mention that, but really, i wanted to address my comments are around the uesf and
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advocacy and be very clear -- it is not our local legislators who are at fault. that advocate incredibly long andadvocate, long and hard around educational issues. it is those of us who are not in the area with the understanding -- we know how important to the committee legislation as. if i was to say something -- it would be to those listening, and watching in the audience. talk to your relatives and friends, in california, to speak to the local legislators. those people have not come up through education, in their legislatan
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