how will that process look? >> what we would like to do to help support that discussion is to do a few things. we would like to know what is the idea proposed and help flesh that out in terms of implementation, the programmatic and fiscal connotations' underlying the ideas. in general, we will try to help put together a package that would be agreed to buy multiple members of the board, or hopefully by consensus, as opposed to having a set of 1-off ideas that turned into what

could be a free-for-all and an unstructured discussion. that is what we would hope to do. i will give you an example. since last tuesday, we had some discussion following up on the committee meeting. i will not go into great detail, but we did talk about the discussion around recovery and what implementing strategies around credit recovery might look like. if we could have a more thorough discussion at that time, we would bring those ideas to that meeting and flush them out in a discussion with the whole board. i will say the superintendent is not here, but i would know what he would say. the deputy superintendent can back me up on this. i know it is very important to him that we all keep in mind that the three year budget projection is pretty lousy, even in the best case scenario from

the state. that has to be a counterweight to the discussion that we talked about last week. we would need to bring that to bear as well. i think the ideas that commissioners have generated through the discussion last week included -- it is a good list. i think we could do good work to prepare for that discussion when it takes place. commissioner fewer: king to, deputy superintendent. i think that my personal opinion is that if we are going to be discussing items that we might restore to the budget that we should be looking not to increase our expenses but to piecemeal out money where we think we can carve out money for these programs. i am in support of summer

school. i just want it to -- i am worried about our ninth and 10th graders that will not pass and will have to pass the requirements to graduate. in three years, we will see thousands not graduate. i think it is better to put money to it so we can see that as many as possible will graduate. in this summer school cycle, what we learned which was very interesting to me is that it only really cost about $250,000 to give summer school to ninth graders. that is pretty incredible. plus summer school to our eld students. i think that is a really good idea. we should discuss it later. but i just wanted to ask the board to consider that any

expenditures that we are looking at changing in this parking lot, that it be one -- it relate to at least one of our 13 priorities. we have 13 priorities anyway that we cannot fund all of. but the most crucial of those should be prioritized. commissioner maufas: i agree with commissioner fewer. i hope we have this dialogue sooner rather than later so the executive staff can work with our recommendation and what we have come to consensus about, so you are not waiting until the last minute and then having to do with other information coming from the state. you can figure out how to work with what we recommend and then work that into a bigger discussion. i want to again support what commissioner fewer is

recommending. the investment helps us in other areas, the investment around summer school and the possibility of saturday school, and the credit recovery helps ninth and 10th graders passed the test. building them up in that way helps in other areas where we are doing makeup work when they do not pass. how do we down continue to support those more senior students before they graduate, where it becomes urgent and they have to attend summer school in a different way? that is an assessment which can make that will benefit as in other areas. the same thing regarding the current engagement peace. we know that will benefit us in other areas. it is needed for parents to understand how to navigate. that will help our immigrant or newcomer parents understand other areas. i consider those investments.

that benefits us in other areas. from my perspective, i want to look at things that are manyfold. we are getting that on the front and. we can tap into other areas so they do many things. i hope we can have that conversation practically so we can get those ideas or what we value so you understand that and can work with us in your executive level discussion. commissioner norton: i want to speak up also in favor of summer school, if we do manage to see an improving picture, understanding what the deputy superintendent said, channeling the superintendent. i know he would be reminding us that this does not look very good. i think looking back over the last two years, the cut that has hurt the most, the programmatic

cut that has hurt the most has been summer school. that has been the one i have heard the most about from people in the community, about how impacted kids for from that cut. if we were to find ourselves in a position where we had some money that we thought we could restore, that would be very high on my list of priorities, to have some kind of funding for summer school next year. that continues to be an area where i think it has really hurt. commissioner murase: i would like to read this list because i think listeners at home do not have access to this information. there are six items. credit recovery support for ninth and 10th graders, for example summer school and saturday school, estimated to be 500 dozen dollars, and

strategies to support more and students to pass courses the first time they are enrolled. secondly, an eight hour day for teachers and security aides. third, lower class size in gatekeeper courses. for, the parent engagement plan. fifth, arts and music. 6, but study site issues. i think in offering suggestions for priorities if the budget loosens up, we have a responsibility to identify sources of those moneys. i am very committed to exploring. if it does not happen in this particular budget over the coming months, which can look at things like bottled water and audits of telephone lines in the district. i suspect there are a number of telephone lines that we do not use the we are paying for. the city and county of san francisco eliminated cell phones

for most of their employees. how many cell phones to we paid for? there is an elephant about non- payment of school lunches. quite a few families of the district money for that. having done a lot of budgeting in my daytime work, i think it is important we look at cost savings, not just ways to spend additional money. vice president yee: focus, focus. i have to agree that summer school is important. i guess in moving that discussion of why we are even having summer school, i want us as a district to not just focus

on thinking that summer school is the only answer. we have to look at other solutions for students that have to go to summer school. i am sure they would rather do something else during the summer and there are ways we could help them during the school year. i think that commissioner murase points out a few things that could possibly generate a few things. i think if we were to take a more aggressive look at keeping our kids in school and reducing the chronic absenteeism, as was discussed last week, we are finding out there has been some impact in terms of the kind of revenues would generate, just

because kids are staying in school more days. i think there is still a big gap between what could be accomplished and what we have accomplished, in terms of absenteeism. that is one thing. i guess i can itself empower. i had some questions on page 46. is it ok? can i deviate from this discussion? page 46 of the new budget booklet. i noticed that on page 46, on the proposed budget for 2011 and 12, there were some words that were changed and i could not figure out why they were changed. the revenues went up. it was not by much, but it went

up by $300,000 or so. i do not know where that came from. the expenses went down i guess $2.50 million. i am just curious. where did we cut? and there is i guess the revenue -- these numbers below would be related to how you answer it. there is one more question. at the bottom of the page, if you could explain -- at the bottom note, there are benefits cost increases and for low savings. in the june 14 document, you have put $5,368,000. it was reduced in this document to $2,687,000.

i want an explanation of how that happened. that is on page 46 and i have questions on two other pages. >> before you start, could i point out one thing? i just wanted to say that the first reading document that the vice president is pointing out -- it is true that there were some different figures two weeks ago. what i want to emphasize is that the three-year projections, the numbers that were shown in the power point from last tuesday, are consistent with the numbers in the second reading document. in case you were wondering whether these numbers have changed since last tuesday, the answer is no. we can explain what the adjustments are that were made.

vice president yee: things for the explanation. last week, i was looking at those numbers only and was not comparing it. i do not need any detailed information. a general explanation is fine. >> the numbers in the presentation are the numbers of the second reading after the book went to print for the first reading. there were some corrections that were found and incorporated in the second reading. they are primarily corrections to some revenue numbers. for instance, the revenue number changed a little bit because the first reading had a $488,000 pass-through of rainy day reserves to the charter schools. then i did a report that was an

oversight on my part of not incorporating that as a line- item expenditure. so the second reading is an attempt to make the numbers agree with that report. but they are primarily technical corrections. vice president yee: you mentioned 400 something thousand, but the expenditure went down by $2.50 million. which is good. i would just like to know where you made the corrections. i guess i want to make sure the we are not cutting something you would not want to cut. >> one of those corrections was the rainy day pass through. it will be an expenditure. it just was not -- because i failed to incorporate it into the report, i took it out of the second reading book.

but when we do get the rainy day amount, there will be a to regulation and there will be a portion set aside for torture schools. the other correction is in the way benefits -- the benefit rates for calculated. in reassessing some of those benefit costs, these were lowered, which resulted in additional savings to the district on benefit costs. vice president yee: is that what i am looking at on the bottom of the page in page 46, where the calculation was basically 50% off? >> correct. the number you are looking at at the bottom really is an attempt to -- first of all, it is a real challenge to pin down exactly what our savings are from the increases in the step and

colorado -- and column. we have the 6.5% increase in salaries offset by the contribution to retirement. a lot of these are moving costs. this is more of a plug number to add up to the change in the fund balance of $28 million. vice president yee: thank you. and on page 48 -- this might really be related to page 46. it is just that when i looked at it i was tying the pages together. on the total unrestricted general fund revenues, the last

total item on that page before you get into the notes, there was an increase on the revenues as compared to the document that two weeks ago of about -- it is the some $300,000, it looks like. >> that is due to be passed through to the charter schools. it is a strict pass through. the first reading had a number that was $4.10 million. the second reading is 4.472. that was an error in the first reading which has been corrected. it really has no impact on our fund balance. it is a pass through. we get the revenue and it goes to the charter schools. the expenditure has been adjusted appropriately. vice president yee: on page 52,

on the fiscal year 2011-12 colorado -- column, on my notes it says that right here it shows some reduction. in the documents two weeks ago, there was nothing there. where did this number come from , 1,897,000? >> as i mentioned earlier, when i revisited the budget, the detailed line items, there were adjustments made to some of the benefit line items. this is specifically related to

workers' comp. we over budgeted on workers' comp. looking at what our exposure is, that amount was reduced. it was a little too late after the fact to incorporate it into every department budget. so this was put as a lump sum amount, as an offset to expenditures. vice president yee: i think you might have already explained this other one that had a zero amount here for the pass through. you already explained that. thank you very much. commissioner wynns: i want to start by making some comments on this parking lot list. i appreciate having that. i actually think some of these things are a little too specific. i think more appropriate for us is to say is this a generalized

problem. for instance, even though it is listed here because it has a budget impact, i really want to know whether we have done things in the past few years that are impacting enrollment at schools on an ongoing basis, if we have lot more kids into kindergarten. that has a facilities impact for which we have not planned, which is budgetary but also has a planning impact. i would ask that these things be looked at. for instance, the star art music comments that we heard -- i asked last week that the budget hearing if you could tell me what is going on. this is my issue about what are we doing with those dollars.

can we look at them through a different line so we understand what we are doing, not just how many people we are hiring and what their benefits are. i want to know that. i want to know what we are actually doing. if you look at the central budgets in this book and see the explanation of what they do, it does not actually say -- they say we provide this or that, but it does not say we do it by teachers listed in our budget who are assigned to schools, or they do this. we would know what we are actually doing with that money. i would like that. i particularly am interested in that for the credit recovery issue. i want to make the case which may be is different than what commissioner norton has said. the loss of summer school has a big impact on lots of people. i understand that. but i would like to hear from

the staff what the plan is from the staff point of view. we have heard from the public many times about providing the necessary support for our kids to meet the increased graduation requirements that we have imposed on them and that we think are going to be good for them in the future, if we can get them there. for instance, i know that in the past when we have had summer school and instituted saturday school, those services were used not very much by people needing to meet rhetorician requirements, but for a purpose that i think is wonderful, which is in richmond or advancing themselves, people who are interested in that. i want to do that, but i want it to be part of our plan to get these requirements and provide the support people need. this year, to the generation of

the city, we had summer school that was specific only to ninth graders who failed a-g classes. that was a different way of looking at the solution to this problem, from a budgetary point of view. i think we should do that. it does not mean i don't want to. i hope we can get the resources to have a summer school for everybody that wants to go, which i do think it addresses the issue of lost time for kids who come back to school not as prepared to start over as they do if they are able to have more enriching educational experiences in the summer. there may be other complex aspects to this. i know that looking at the cost of summer school, one time we had one-third of our kids in summer school, to state funding for the most part.

there is this issue of equity goals. i would like to hear the budget view on the staff discussion about credit recovery and other support services needed for equity goals. it would not only be, as it says here, other strategies to support more students the first time they are enrolled. that is my comment on the parking lot list. i would like it to be generalized more for us, not just flip through them in this order. others might disagree with that. and i have the same kind of questions for staff, some of which we have heard already. generally, i want to say i find it difficult. for anybody that does not know, i think the budget is far more

accessible to people. it is all of the narratives in the front. i do recommend to people that they read the whole narrative if they want to understand the budget. it is extremely helpful. but i think that the number pages are less -- we can still improve on them. let's put it that way. again, i would like to see the department of budgets tell me actually what we do. obviously, i understand this is transferred directly. we need to know how many fte's we are spending to each department. but that does not tell us or the public what they are doing with the money, and i think we need that. as well, i think we need the ability, maybe in selective ways, to compare the budget last year to the proposed budget for this year.

we are spending a lot of time going like this. almost no one else is looking at the budget either online or in printed form with both books or in front of them were both budgets available. i realize that i -- it is almost impossible unless you spend all your time doing it to know what the numbers are and where that may be significant. i actually would like to see some references, which i have to say are in the budget, which are much smaller and less complex -- someplace in the budget where it says these are the significant deviations. instead of us having to say what is that, if you said you are seeing -- last year, we did some of the flexing. we also reorganize some of the departments. i ask the question, why we had

47 counselors listed in a department and there were not there next year. there were someplace else. if those things were explained, it would be easier for us to get a handle on what we are doing differently and where the cuts are showing up in the budget. i have a couple of specific questions, not very many. in the narrative on page 13, where it says other factors at the bottom of page 13 -- in last year's book, there was reference to the savings, just to keep it on summer school and evening school. i understand we have already canceled that and realize the salary savings. but there are other places in the document where it says maintaining the reduction. i just want to check and make sure that there is some reason for not including that.

>> are you asking for not including the original expenditures? commissioner wynns: in the narrative. it does not make clear to people that it is one of the major cuts we made and we are not proposing to add it back. by having no reference there, in the budget pages, in the exhibits, you see that cut. the reason you see it is because last year's line is in there as well. those are significant budget- cutting strategies which i hope we will not be doing any more, but we know we will. a thing by leaving those out in some places we are leaving out a vital piece of information. vital piece of information. i do want to talk a little bit